THE  OLD  GOSPEL  IN 
THE  NEW  CENTURY 


JAMES  D.  MCCAUGHTRY 


iRARY  OF  RELIGIOUS  THOUGHT 


BV  603  .M22  1915 
NcCaughtry,  James  Dailey 
Old  gospel  in  the  new 
century 


t:g7^T 


M 


THE  OLD  GOSPEL  IN 
THE  NEW  CENTURY 


BY 


JAMES  D.  McCAUGHTRY 


OCT    ^ 


yi   in 


"So  teach  us  to  number  our  days,  that  we  may  apply  our 
hearts  unto  wisdom."   Psalm  90:12. 


BOSTON:  RICHARD  G.  BADGER 

TORONTO:      THE   COPP   CI/AKK   CO,   LIMITED 


Copyright,  1915,  by  James  D.  McCaughtry 


All  Rights  Reserved 


THB  GORHAM  PRB88,  BOSTON,  U.   S.  A. 


To 

The  Reverend 

DAVID  JAMES  BURRELL,  D.D.,  LL.D., 

Pastor  of  the  Marble  Collegiate  Church 

of  New  York  City, 

whose  helpful  suggestions  and  wise  counsel 

in  my  early  ministry, 

helped  to  make  this  volume  possible, 

this  book  is  dedicated 

with  grateful  acknowledgment  of  his  friendship. 


CONTENTS 

Page 

The  Church  in  the  Light  of  History 9 

The  Bible  Tested  in  the  Crucible  of  Time 21 

The  Biblical  Basis  of  Foreign  Missions 31 

Figuring  Out  the  Profits  in  a  Losing  Game 43 

The  Church  and  the  Working  Man  of  the  Twen- 
tieth  Century    53 

The  Practical  Value  of  Christianity  as  a  National 

Asset    73 

The  Call  of  the  Hour   87 


THE  CHURCH  IN  THE  LIGHT  OF  HISTORY 


"For  if  this  counsel  or  this  work  be  of  men,  it  will 
come  to  nought;  but  if  it  be  of  God,  ye  cannot  overthrow 
it"— Acts  5:38,  39- 

"The  small  mud-huts  of  bigotry  will  be  submerged  by 
the  mighty  cataclysm  of  human  progress,  but  the  Church, 
founded  upon  a  rock,  will  remain  above  the  floods'* — 
Ecce  Deus. 


The  Old  Gospel  in  the  New 
Century 

THE  CHURCH  IN  THE  LIGHT  OF  HISTORY 

IN  the  years  of  childhood  we  accept  with  unques- 
tioning faith  the  instructions  of  our  parents  and 
teachers;  but  as  the  years  pass  and  the  faculties  of 
the  mind  expand,  as  the  reason  grows  stronger  and 
we  begin  to  broaden  the  foundations  of  our  faith,  we  come 
to  a  point  where  we  begin  to  ask  questions  about  our 
environment  and  want  to  be  able  to  give  an  intelligent  rea- 
son for  our  faith.  We  come  at  length  to  a  place  where  we 
awake  to  the  fact  that  we  are  in  a  world  thst  is  several 
thousand  years  older  than  we  are,  that  we  are  living  in 
the  midst  of  laws  and  institutions  that  have  come  down 
from  hoary  antiquity,  and  we  very  naturally  want  to 
know  the  meaning  of  these  facts  and  institutions.  We 
find  among  these  institutions  the  Church  with  its  system 
of  doctrine  and  its  forms  of  worship,  and  we  begin  to 
ask  ourselves,  What  is  the  Church?  What  is  its  mission 
to  our  age  and  what  its  relation  to  our  life  problems? 

Our  fathers  believed  that  it  was  a  divine  institution 
founded  by  Christ  for  the  purpose  of  saving  men  and 
women  from  sin  and  at  length  establishing  the  reign  of 
righteousness  in  the  earth. 

There  are  those  in  our  day  who  tell  us  that  the  church 
is  merely  a  human  institution  like  the  lodge,  the  school 
or  the  lyceum;  that  people  of  like  tastes  and  aims  have 
banded  themselves  together  for  mutual  improvement  and 
have  called  the  society  thus  formed  a  church. 

Sooner  or  later  the  question  will  force  itself  upon  each 
9 


10  THE  OLD  GOSPEL 

of  us,  Is  the  Church  a  human  institution?  or  is  it  a 
divine  institution  resting  upon  the  life  and  character  of 
Jesus  Christ?  It  is  my  purpose  in  this  chapter  to  try  to 
meet  this  inquiry  by  an  appeal  to  history  and  an  examina- 
tion of  facts. 

The  Church  has  proved  itself  to  be  of  God  by  the  fact 
that  It  has  met  and  successfully  vanquished  every  form  of 
opposition  that  it  has  encountered  in  the  nearly  tw^o  thou- 
sand years  of  its  existence. 

When  the  divine  Founder  of  the  Church  w^as  born  In 
Bethlehem  a  price  v^^as  put  upon  his  life.  A  royal  edict 
was  issued  from  the  palace  of  Herod  that  all  the  male  chil- 
dren In  and  around  Bethlehem  should  be  slain.  But  In 
spite  of  this  cruel  edict  the  very  child  for  w^hom  It  w^as 
intended  escaped  and  grew  to  manhood  In  the  village  of 
Nazareth,  and  when  He  was  about  thirty  years  old  began 
to  proclaim  himself  the  founder  of  a  kingdom — a  kingdom 
unlike  any  other  that  had  ever  existed  on  earth.  It  was 
not  founded  upon  force  or  wealth  or  learning,  but  upon 
love.  It  was  a  kingdom  that  was  to  have  no  limitations 
In  time  or  geographical  extension.  It  was  to  reach  to 
the  uttermost  parts  of  the  earth  and  to  the  uttermost 
limits  of  time  and  to  the  uttermost  depths  of  man's  need. 

Jesus  gathered  around  him  twelve  men,  taught  them 
his  doctrines,  showed  them  his  works  and  sent  them  forth 
to  preach  his  gospel  to  all  nations.  When  these  twelve 
men  set  out  upon  their  task  they  found  heathenism  strong- 
ly entrenched  on  every  hand.  Heathenism  had  the  patron- 
age of  emperors  and  statesmen.  It  counted  among  Its 
adherents  the  Pharaohs  of  Egypt  and  the  Caesars  of  Rome. 
Heathenism  had  then  all  the  machinery  of  government  at 


IN  THE   NEW  CENTURY  ii 

its  command,  all  the  courts  of  law,  all  the  armies  and 
navies.  If  the  apostles  appealed  to  the  courts  for  redress 
of  any  grievance,  their  case  must  be  tried  before  a  tribunal 
that  was  not  in  sympathy  with  their  views.  The  judges 
had  been  reared  by  heathen  mothers,  trained  in  heathen 
schools,  and  were  thoroughly  heathen  in  all  their  ideas. 
If  the  apostles  appealed  to  arms  to  establish  their  cause, 
all  the  armies  were  commanded  and  manned  by  those  who 
were  heathen  in  their  ideas.  Christianity  had  no  great 
statesmen  or  soldiers,  in  fact  no  great  names  save  that 
one  NAME  that  is  above  every  name,  the  name  of  the 
crucified  Christ. 

Heathenism  had  the  support  of  the  accumulated  wealth 
of  forty  centuries.  All  the  treasuries  of  the  nations  were 
controlled  by  those  who  were  heathen.  We  know  some- 
thing of  the  power  of  wealth  in  the  hands  of  corrupt  men 
to  prevent  the  progress  of  righteousness  in  our  own  day, 
but  that  power  was  tenfold  greater  in  the  degenerate  days 
of  the  Caesars  than  it  is  now,  and  these  corrupt  opponents 
of  the  Gospel  did  not  hesitate  to  use  money  to  bribe  men 
to  oppose  the  spread  of  the  Christian  religion. 

Heathenism  had  the  prestige  of  the  best  scholarship  of 
all  the  past  ages.  It  counted  among  its  followers  the  great 
poets,  philosophers,  orators  and  historians.  However  much 
any  of  these  men  might  have  wished  to  be  in  sympathy 
with  the  message  of  the  apostles,  they  had  their  present 
environment  and  their  past  training  to  overcome.  Homer 
and  Virgil  wrote  their  great  epics  to  set  forth  the  glory 
of  heathen  gods  and  goddesses.  The  philosophers  wrote 
from  a  heathen  point  of  view,  the  orators  knew  no  other 
gods  than  those  of  Mt.  Olympus.    We  are  aware  of  the 


12  THE  OLD  GOSPEL 

power  of  great  universities  and  educational  centers  in 
moulding  public  sentiment  in  our  day,  but  that  power  was 
even  greater  in  those  far-off  days  when  there  were  no 
newspapers  or  magazines  and  when  only  the  few  could 
read  and  write.  Christianity  had  no  schools  at  the  first — 
no  poets,  no  philosophers,  no  orators.  Its  representatives 
were  twelve  humble  men  from  around  the  shores  of  the 
sea  of  Galilee  who  were  imbued  with  the  spirit  of  the 
Christ  and  who  were  willing  to  surrender  their  lives  if 
need  be  for  His  cause. 

Heathenism  was  entrenched  behind  the  prejudices  of 
the  people.  It  appealed  to  the  passions  and  vices  of  men. 
Christianity  sought  to  overcome  the  prejudices,  curb  the 
passions  and  destroy  the  vices  of  the  people. 

Heathenism  had  its  temples  and  its  votaries  in  every 
land.  Christianity  had  no  temples  and  few  disciples.  The 
Master  said  to  one  who  would  become  a  disciple: 
"The  foxes  have  holes  and  the  birds  of  the  heaven  have 
nests;  but  the  Son  of  man  hath  not  where  to  lay  His 
head."  The  sermon  which  is  the  keynote  of  his  teaching, 
known  as  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount,  was  delivered  on 
a  hill  in  Galilee  and  most  of  his  discourses  were  delivered 
from  a  fishing  boat  or  in  the  open  air  around  the  shores 
of  the  sea.  The  first  three  hundred  years  of  the  history  of 
the  Church  are  a  history  of  persecution,  poverty  and 
martyrdom ;  but  out  of  this  baptism  of  fire  and  blood  and 
tears  it  came  triumphant,  and  in  the  year  three  hundred 
and  thirteen  placed  a  Christian  emperor  on  the  throne 
of  the  Caesars.  In  the  enthronement  of  Constantino,  Chris- 
tianity became  the  recognized  religion  of  the  Roman 
Empire. 


IN  THE  NEW  CENTURY  13 

Again,  the  Church  met  with  opposition  in  the  deism  of 
England  and  the  atheism  of  France  in  the  sixteenth  and 
seventeenth  centuries.  Gibbon  and  Hume,  the  great  his- 
torians, hurled  all  the  force  of  their  great  powers  of  in- 
tellect against  the  religion  of  Jesus  Christ.  They  dashed 
their  arguments  against  the  Rock  of  Divine  Truth;  but 
it  was  like  striking  one's  fists  against  the  rock  of  Gibral- 
ter,  and  Hume  acknowledged  at  the  last  that  he  had  failed. 
These  are  his  own  words:  "I  seem  affrighted  and  con- 
founded by  the  solitude  in  which  I  am  placed  by  my 
philosophy.  When  I  look  abroad  on  every  side  I  see 
dispute,  contradiction  and  distraction.  When  I  turn  my 
eye  inward  I  find  nothing  but  doubt  and  ignorance. 
Where  am  I  ?  What  am  I  ?  From  what  cause  do  I  derive 
my  existence?  To  what  condition  shall  I  return?  I  am 
confounded  with  questions.  I  begin  to  fancy  myself  in  a 
very  deplorable  condition,  surrounded  with  darkness  on 
every  side." 

Voltaire  and  Rousseau,  the  versatile  skeptics  of  that 
time,  wrote  scathing  denunciations  of  the  Christian  re- 
ligion and  tried  to  laugh  it  out  of  court,  but  it  would  not 
be  laughed  out  any  more  than  it  would  be  reasoned  out, 
and  while  their  sneers  are  forgotten  the  Gospel  still  lives 
and  exerts  a  mighty  uplifting  and  ennobling  influence 
upon  the  lives  of  thousands  who  do  not  know  even  the 
names  of  these  men  of  genius,  wit  and  ridicule.  Voltaire 
once  made  the  prediction  that  within  one  hundred  years 
the  Bible  would  be  out  of  print  and  the  Christian  re- 
ligion would  be  swept  from  the  earth  as  an  effete  super- 
stition. But  what  are  the  facts?  Since  that  prediction 
was  uttered  more  people  have  accepted  Christ  as  their 


14  THE  OLD  GOSPEL 

Saviour  and  united  with  the  visible  Church  than  all  the 
people  that  had  accepted  the  Christian  faith  in  all  the 
sixteen  centuries  that  had  gone  before.  Verily  Voltaire 
was  a  prophet,  but  like  Balaam  a  false  prophet! 

"Oh  where  are  kings  and  empires  now 

Of  old  that  went  and  came? 
But,  Lord,  thy  Church  is  praying  yet, 

A  thousand  years  the  same. 
We  mark  her  goodly  battlements 

And   her  foundations  strong; 
We  hear  within  the  solemn  voice 

Of  her  unending  song. 
For  not  like  kingdoms  of  the  world 

Thy  holy  Church,  O  God ; 
Though  earthquake  shocks  are  threatening  her, 

And  tempests  are  abroad ; 
Unshaken  as  the  eternal  hills, 

Immovable  she  stands, 
A  mountain  that  shall  fill  the  earth, 

A  house  not  made  with  hands." 

The  Church  of  Jesus  Christ  has  shown  itself  to  be  a 
divine  institution  by  what  is  has  done  to  elevate  and  im- 
prove men  and  nations  materially,  intellectually,  morally 
and  socially  as  well  as  religiously.  Some  years  ago  there 
fell  into  my  hands  a  book  entitled,  "National  Salvation." 
One  of  the  chapters  of  the  book,  on  "The  Economic  Value 
of  Redemption,"  interested  me  much.  In  this  chapter  the 
author  went  on  to  show  the  material  advantage  given  to 
men  and  communities  by  the  Christian  religion.    He  took 


IN  THE  NEW  CENTURY  15 

as  the  unit  of  comparison  the  wages  of  an  ordinary  day 
laborer  in  different  countries.  For  instance,  the  wages 
of  a  day  laborer  in  India  and  China,  countries  dominated 
by  heathenism,  is  about  ten  cents  a  day.  In  Mohammedan 
countries,  where  there  is  some  knowledge  of  the  true  God, 
the  wage  is  from  twenty  to  twenty-five  cents  a  day.  In 
Roman-catholic  lands,  where  Christ  is  known  as  a  Saviour 
very  imperfectly,  wages  rise  to  forty  and  fifty  cents  a  day. 
In  Protestant  countries,  where  the  Gospel  of  Christ  is 
taught  in  its  purity,  we  find  the  wage  of  a  day  laborer 
is  from  a  dollar  and  forty  cents  to  a  dollar  and  fifty 
cents  a  day.  But  some  one  will  say  that  the  difference  is 
largely  a  difference  in  the  purchasing  power  of  money.  This 
sounds  reasonable  until  we  are  told  that  good  bread  and  but- 
ter and  cotton  and  woollen  goods,  and  other  things  which 
working  men  in  Christian  lands  regard  as  necessities  of 
life,  cost  more  in  Bombay  and  Peking  than  they  do  in 
Chicago,  New  York  or  London. 

Again  it  may  be  argued  that  the  wages  of  a  country 
is  determined  not  by  religion  but  by  the  fertility  of  the 
soil  and  the  condition  of  the  climate.  That  sounds  very 
plausible  until  you  reflect  that  the  wages  of  a  day  laborer 
is  only  forty  or  fifty  cents  a  day  in  sunny  France  and 
among  the  vine-clad  hills  of  Italy,  while  among  the 
heather-clad  hills  of  Scotland  and  the  rock-ribbed  hills  of 
New  England,  with  less  fertile  soil  and  less  salubrious 
climate,  men  are  getting  a  dollar  or  a  dollar  and  a  half  a 
day  for  common  labor. 

In  the  last  analysis  it  will  be  found  that  the  prosperity 
of  a  country  is  not  so  much  determined  by  soil  and  climate 
as  by  the  intelligence  and  morality  of  the  people.    Where 


i6  THE  OLD  GOSPEL 

the  Church  of  Christ  becomes  the  dominant  factor  in  the 
life  of  any  people  men  and  women  become  more  intelligent, 
and  as  they  rise  in  the  scale  they  make  more  use  of  the 
forces  of  nature  and  are  able  to  get  more  out  of  the  soil. 
As  men  increase  in  wisdom  and  righteousness  their  wants 
increase  and  their  ability  to  satisfy  those  wants  is  enhanced. 
The  fact  is  that  the  day  laborer  in  Christian  lands  lives 
better,  is  better  housed  and  better  fed  and  clothed,  than 
the  workers  in  heathen  lands.  It  should  be  remembered 
in  this  connection  that  almost  all  the  great  inventions  and 
discoveries  that  have  been  made  in  the  last  thousand  years 
have  been  the  fruit  of  Christian  thought  and  enterprise. 
If  you  were  to  move  all  the  churches  out  of  any  State 
in  this  Union,  property  would  depreciate  in  value  from 
thirty  to  sixty  per  cent,  within  six  months.  The  Church 
has  been  the  patron  of  free  education,  the  founder  of 
colleges  and  universities,  the  publisher  of  books  and  tracts 
and  the  originator  of  hospitals  in  every  land.  Wherever 
the  Church  goes  it  sets  up  the  printing-press  and  builds 
a  schoolhouse  and  hospital. 

The  Church  has  shown  itself  to  be  of  God  by  the  fact 
that  it  has  won  the  confidence  of  all  sorts  and  conditions  of 
men  in  every  age  since  the  beginning  of  the  Christian 
era.  It  has  the  power  of  adapting  its  message  to  meet 
the  needs  of  all  kinds  of  people.  Without  wealth  or  culture 
or  social  prestige  it  went  forth  and  conquered  the  Roman 
Empire.  In  the  days  of  feudalism  it  concentrated  its 
strength  in  a  great  hierarchy  and  met  force  of  brawn  with 
force  of  brain,  and  the  monasteries  became  the  conserva- 
tors of  religion  and  of  learning  during  the  dark  ages. 
When  the  revival  of  learning  came  the  Church  awoke 


IN  THE  NEW  CENTURY  17 

in  the  throes  of  the  Reformation  and  the  new  conditions 
of  life  were  met  by  new  methods  of  applying  the  Gospel 
message.  Witness  some  of  the  more  recent  devlopments 
of  the  Church  to  meet  the  new  needs  of  society.  The 
Sunday-school,  founded  about  one  hundred  and  fifty  years 
ago,  is  the  Church  adapting  its  message  to  the  children  of 
the  world.  The  Salvation  Army  is  the  Church  adapting 
its  message  to  the  submerged  classes  of  our  great  cities. 
The  Y.  M.  C.  A.  and  the  Christian  Endeavor  Society  are 
but  the  Church  reaching  out  to  win  the  young  manhood 
and  the  young  womanhood  of  the  nations  to  Christ. 

"Like  a  mighty  army  moves  the  Church  of  God  ; 
Brothers,  we  are  treading  where  the  saints  have   trod; 
We  are  not  divided,  all  one  body  we, 
One  in  hope  and  doctrine,  one  in  charity. 
Crowns  and  thrones  may  perish,  kingdoms  rise  and  wane, 
But  the  Church  of  Jesus  constant  shall  remain; 
Gates  of  hell  can  never  'gainst  that  Church  prevail; 
We  have  Christ's  own  promise,  and  that  cannot  fail." 


THE  BIBLE  TESTED  IN  THE  CRUCIBLE  OF 
TIME 


"The  words  of  the  Lord  are  pure  words:  as  silver 
tried  in  a  furnace  on  the  earth,  purified  seven  times** — 
Psalm  12:6. 

"The  Bible,  diamond-like,  casts  its  lustre  in  every  direc- 
tion; torch-like,  the  more  shaken  the  more  it  shines; 
herb-like,  the  more  pressed  the  sweeter  its  fragrance'* — 
Anon. 


THE  BIBLE  TESTED  IN  THE  CRUCIBLE  OF 
TIME 

THIS  is  an  age  of  books  and  reading.  A  hun- 
dred years  ago  reading  was  the  privilege  of 
the  favored  few.  Books  were  so  costly  that 
only  the  opulent  could  afford  them,  but  now 
everybody  reads.  Newspapers  are  scattered  like  the  leaves 
of  the  autumn.  Every  village  has  its  public  library,  and 
every  home,  however  humble,  has  it  case  of  books.  The 
public  libraries  of  our  own  country  alone  contain  many 
millions  of  volumes,  to  say  nothing  of  the  great  libraries 
of  the  old  world,  like  the  Vatican  at  Rome,  the  Imperial 
at  Paris,  or  the  Bodleian  at  Oxford,  centers  where  books 
have  been  accumulating  for  centuries. 

But  among  these  millions  of  volumes  there  is  one  book 
that  still  holds  the  pre-eminence.  It  is  called  The  Book 
(ton  biblion),  as  if  there  were  no  other  book  worthy  of 
the  name.     This  book  is  remarkable  in  many  respects. 

It  is  remarkable  in  its  origin.  A  book  is  generally  the 
product  of  the  mind  of  some  individual  who  has  some- 
thing to  communicate  to  others  or  who  wishes  to  transmit 
his  thoughts  to  future  generations;  but  the  Bible  is  the 
product  of  no  one  man.  It  is  the  work  of  some  forty 
different  men  who  lived  in  different  countries,  spoke  dif- 
ferent languages,  and  whose  lives  covered  a  period  of 
almost  seventeen  hundred  years. 

This  book  that  we  call  the  Bible  is  made  up  of  sixty-six 
books  nicely  fitted  together  and  as  concrete  as  if  it  were 

21 


22  THE  OLD  GOSPEL 

the  work  of  a  single  author.  It  is  as  if  some  one  had 
hewn  a  rock  out  of  the  hills  of  Vermont,  and,  in  the 
next  generation,  another  had  hewn  a  rock  from  the  quar- 
ries of  Dakota,  and  another  from  the  Rocky  Mountains, 
and  so  on  for  more  than  a  century,  and  then,  when  the 
stones  were  brought  together  by  mere  accident,  they  were 
found  to  form  a  cathedral  which  surpassed  in  magnitude 
and  beauty  the  Cathedral  of  Cologne  or  St.  Peter's  at 
Rome.  The  Bible  is  the  cathedral  of  literature.  It  is  an 
oratorio  wrought  out  on  the  keyboard  of  the  centuries  by 
the  fingers  of  God. 

The  Bible  is  remarkable  for  its  antiquity.  When  Shakes- 
peare was  a  child  playing  on  the  banks  of  the  Avon  the 
Bible  was  an  old  book.  Three  thousand  years  before 
Chaucer,  the  father  of  English  literature,  began  to  write, 
this  book  was  read  in  the  tents  of  Oriental  shepherds. 
Some  parts  of  this  book  were  in  existence  seven  hundred 
years  before  the  foundations  of  Rome  were  laid.  The 
Laws  of  Moses  were  promulgated  before  Greece  became 
a  commonwealth,  and  the  Book  of  Job  antedates  the  Fall 
of  Troy.  Yet  in  spite  of  its  antiquity  this  Book  is  ever 
new.  It  has  the  freshness  and  dew  of  youth  upon  it. 
Other  old  books  have  their  day,  do  their  work,  and  then 
are  left  to  moulder  on  the  shelves  of  old  libraries,  but 
the  Bible  is  read  and  re-read  age  after  age  as  though  it 
were  the  latest  novel. 

The  Bible  is  remarkable  in  its  claims.  It  claims  God 
for  its  Author,  and  pretends  to  set  forth  truth  that  could 
not  have  been  discovered  by  the  unaided  mind  of  man. 
It  claims  to  give  us  a  revelation  of  the  ultimate  and 
highest  truth.     "For  no  prophecy  ever  came  by  the  will 


IN  THE  NEW  CENTURY  23 

of  man,  but  men  spoke  from  God,  being  moved  by  the 
Holy  Spirit." 

This  Book  claims  to  set  forth  all  that  we  need  to  know 
about  God,  all  that  we  need  to  know  about  the  future,  all 
that  we  need  to  know  about  sin,  all  that  we  need  to  know 
about  our  own  souls,  or  any  question  concerning  our 
eternal  salvation.  These  are  high  claims.  Can  they  be 
shown  to  be  true?  What  is  there  about  the  history  of  the 
Book  to  justify  these  claims?  My  reply  is  that  these 
claims  have  been  tested  in  the  crucible  of  experience.  The 
Bible  has  been  "tried  as  silver  is  tried  in  a  furnace  on  the 
earth." 

It  has  been  tried  in  the  furnace  of  persecution.  When 
the  followers  of  Christ  first  began  to  meet  behind  closed 
doors  to  read  his  sayings  and  those  of  the  old  prophets  and 
the  apostles,  their  assemblies  were  broken  up  and  the  read- 
ing of  these  sacred  books  was  prohibited.  The  enemies 
of  the  Bible,  as  w^e  have  shown  in  the  preceding  chaptei, 
had  back  of  them  the  accumulated  wealth  of  forty  cen- 
turies. The  friends  of  the  Bible  had  no  wealth  at  all. 
They  were  shepherds  from  the  hills  of  Judaea,  fishermen 
from  the  Sea  of  Galilee,  and  peasants  from  Samaria. 
The  opponents  of  the  Bible  had  the  patronage  of  emperors 
and  statesmen.  The  wealth  the  learning  and  the  aristo- 
cracy of  the  world  were  arrayed  against  the  Bible  and 
against  those  who  believed  its  teachings. 

In  spite  of  all  this  persecution  and  opposition  the  Bible 
is  the  most  popular  book  in  the  world  to-day.  The 
longest  telegraphic  message  that  ever  flashed  across  the 
continent  on  the  wings  of  electricity  was  a  message  of 
118,000   words   of    the   Revised    New   Testament   from 


24  THE  OLD  GOSPEL 

Matthew  to  Romans,  sent  in  1881  from  New  York  to 
Chicago  to  be  printed  in  the  great  Chicago  dailies.  In 
the  year  1800  only  about  5,000,000  Bibles  were  in  ex- 
istence in  all  languages,  then  about  forty  languages  and 
dialects.  Now  there  are  more  than  250,000,000  Bibles 
scattered  over  the  world  in  at  least  350  different  lan- 
guages. In  the  year  1804  a  society  was  formed  known 
as  the  British  and  Foreign  Bible  Society;  since  then 
thirty  similar  societies  have  been  formed.  Think  of  it! 
Thirty  societies  controlling  many  millions  of  dollars  of 
capital  and  employing  thousands  of  men  and  women  in 
the  work  of  publishing  and  distributing  the  Bible!  Of 
what  other  book  can  this  be  said?  The  best  selling  book 
on  the  market  to-day  is  the  Bible. 

And  this  Book  has  been  tested  in  the  crucible  of  bigotry 
and  superstition.  In  the  Dark  ages  the  priests  took  this 
book  and  coffined  it  in  a  dead  language  and  buried  it  in 
a  monastic  tomb.  Then  the  darkest  period  of  history 
settled  down  upon  the  world  for  a  thousand  years,  but 
like  the  incarnate  Word  of  God,  the  grave  could  not 
hold  the  written  Word,  and  when  the  fullness  of  time 
was  come  God  sent  forth  His  angel  in  the  person  of 
Martin  Luther  to  roll  the  stone  from  the  door  of  the 
sepulchre,  and  the  Bible  arose  from  that  tomb  to  shed  its 
light  over  two  hemispheres  in  the  language  of  the  common 
people.  Every  effort  of  superstition  to  destroy  the  Bible 
has  only  multiplied  its  influence  for  good. 

A  writer  in  the  "Review  of  Practical  Christianity,"  a 
French  magazine,  says  that  in  France  even  the  Catholic 
clergy  are  beginning  to  see  their  great  mistake  in  with- 
holding the  Bible  from  the  people,  and  he  quotes  M. 


IN  THE  NEW  CENTURY  25 

Michael,  a  Catholic  priest,  as  saying:  "All  teachers  of 
free  schools,  at  least,  should  make  the  young  under  their 
care  commit  to  memory  the  greater  part  of  the  Bible,  and 
those  who  have  the  care  of  souls  should  assure  them- 
selves that  every  family  possesses  at  least  one  copy  of 
the  Word  of  God."  He  also  quotes  the  rector  of  the 
Catholic  Institute  of  Paris  as  saying,  in  his  Lenten  sermon 
at  Notre  Dame,  that  the  "careful  and  guarded  perusal 
of  the  Bible  is  one  of  the  most  powerful  means  of  strength- 
ening faith  and  giving  a  Christian  bias  to  souls." 

The  Bible  has  been  tried  in  the  crucible  of  experi- 
ence. Observation  teaches  that  where  the  Bible  has  found 
a  lodgment  in  the  minds  and  hearts  of  the  people  it  has 
produced  a  unique  type  of  civilization. 

Every  great  civilization  is  built  up  on  some  basal  prin- 
ciple or  ruling  idea.  The  civilization  of  Egypt  was  built 
upon  the  idea  of  accumulation.  The  ruling  passion  was 
wealth.  Hence  Egypt  could  build  the  pyramids  and  the 
grain  cities  that  have  recently  been  unearthed.  The  finish- 
ed product  of  Egypt  was  a  pyramid  or  a  sphinx;  but  in 
Egypt  the  people  were  slaves  and  the  many  labored  for 
the  benefit  of  the  few. 

The  civilization  of  Greece  was  founded  upon  the  idea 
of  culture.  Greece  built  beautiful  cities.  Greece  sang 
the  sweetest  songs  and  carved  the  most  beautiful  sculpture 
of  the  past.  Greece  excelled  in  art,  literature  and  archi- 
tecture. The  finished  product  of  Grecian  civilization  was 
a  statue,  a  Parthenon  or  a  poem,  but  the  common  people 
of  Greece  were  not  happy  and  her  philosophers  taught 
that  only  the  educated  were  endowed  with  souls. 

Rome  built  up  a  civilization  on  the  idea  of  law.     Her 


26  THE  OLD  GOSPEL 

legions  carried  her  eagles  to  the  four  corners  of  the  earth. 
Rome  put  her  iron  heel  on  the  neck  of  humanity  and  ruled 
the  world  with  an  iron  sceptre,  but  the  people  of  Rome 
were  vagabonds,  satisfied  with  being  fed  at  the  public  crib, 
and  delighted  with  the  brutal  shows  of  the  Coliseum. 
Rome  gave  the  w^orld  the  Temple  of  Justice;  but  it 
crushed  out  individual  initiative. 

The  civilization  produced  by  the  Bible  is  one  of  man- 
hood and  womanhood.  The  ideas  of  wealth,  culture  and 
law  are  all  included  in  the  Christian  ideal  of  civilization, 
but  they  are  all  made  subservient  to  the  one  great  ruling 
purpose  of  making  men  and  women  Godlike.  The  finished 
product  of  Christian  civilization  is  a  man  recognizing  his 
divine  origin  and  looking  up  into  the  face  of  God  and 
saying  "Our  Father."  The  Bible  alone  has  given  to  the 
world  a  man  in  all  that  the  word  manhood  means,  and  it 
has  put  a  new  and  broader  meaning  into  the  word. 

Ulfilas,  a  Gothic  youth,  translated  the  Bible  into  the 
language  of  the  Goths^ — a  task  of  seven  long  years;  and 
the  silent  influence  of  that  Bible,  working  like  leaven  in 
the  minds  and  hearts  of  the  people,  gave  to  the  world  the 
great  German  masters;  gave  to  the  world  the  Reforma- 
tion ;  gave  to  the  world  the  civilization  that  made  possible 
a  Luther,  a  Goethe,  a  Schiller,  and  a  Von  Humboldt.  A 
hundred  years  ago  the  Hawaiian  Islands  were  inhabited 
by  savages  who  ate  each  other  and  worshiped  on  altars 
reeking  with  human  blood.  About  sixty  years  ago  the 
Bible  was  taken  to  those  islands,  and  behold  the  civiliza- 
tion of  that  country  to-day! 

It  is  sometimes  objected  that  the  original  manuscripts 
were  full  of  errors.     Suppose  the  statement  were  true, 


IN   THE  NEW  CENTURY  27 

what  does  it  matter?  No  man  living  ever  saw  the  original 
manuscripts,  but  the  Book  is  here  like  a  beautiful  lake  in 
the  midst  of  a  rich  and  fertile  valley.  The  fertility  of 
the  valley  is  due  in  large  measure  to  the  lake.  Will  any 
man  object  to  drinking  water  from  the  lake  because  thou- 
sands of  years  ago  there  was  a  report  that  there  was  con- 
tagion in  one  or  two  of  the  springs  away  back  in  the  hills 
which  flow  into  the  lake?  The  Bible  nowhere  claims  to 
be  an  absolute  authority  in  matters  of  science  or  history  or 
philology;  but  it  does  claim  to  give  us  the  history  of  the 
plan  of  salvation.  It  claims  to  be  an  all-sufficient  guide 
in  matters  of  religion  and  a  perfect  rule  of  conduct  in 
dealing  with  our  fellow-men.  In  view  of  the  foregoing 
facts  may  w^e  not  say  with  the  Psalmist — "Thy  Word  is  a 
lamp  unto  my  feet  and  a  light  unto  my  path?" 

At  the  top  of  the  Queen's  staircase  in  Windsor  Castle 
is  a  statue  in  bronze.  It  represents  a  man  with  a  Bible 
in  his  outstretched  left  hand,  while  with  the  index  finger 
of  his  right  hand  he  points  to  the  words  from  the  119th 
Psalm,  "Thy  Word  is  a  lamp  unto  my  feet  and  a  light 
unto  my  path."  It  is  said  that  Edward  VI.  had  it  placed 
there  that  his  sons  might  always  be  reminded  that  the 
Bible  is  the  only  safe  book  for  a  king  to  follow.  This 
was  a  very  commendable  act,  but  why  should  we  wait 
until  death  has  sealed  our  lips  and  frozen  our  hands  before 
we  commend  the  Bible  to  our  children  and  friends?  Let 
us  hold  it  up  in  our  living  hands,  and  speak  of  its  truth 
and  beauty  w^ith  these  living  lips  of  ours,  and  God  will 
bless  us  for  doing  so.  In  closing  let  me  remind  you, 
that,  the  world's  greatest  thinkers  have  reverenced  and 
followed  this  Book." 


28  THE  OLD  GOSPEL 

John  Quincy  Adams  said:  "So  great  is  my  veneration 
for  the  Bible  that  the  earlier  my  children  begin  to  read  it 
the  more  confident  will  be  my  hopes  that  they  will  prove 
useful  citizens  to  their  country  and  respectable  members 
of  society." 

Daniel  Webster  said  on  one  occasion:  "Without  the 
Bible  man  would  be  in  the  midst  of  a  sandy  desert,  sur- 
rounded on  all  sides  by  a  dark  and  impenetrable  horizon.'' 

William  H.  Seward  felt  and  said  that:  "The  whole 
hope  of  human  progress  is  suspended  upon  the  ever-growing 
influence  of  the  Bible." 

Dana,  a  man  who  spoke  with  authority  among  men  of 
science  in  his  day,  had  this  to  say  about  the  Bible  and 
science:  "There  can  be  no  real  conflict  between  science 
and  the  Bible,  between  nature  and  the  Scriptures  the  two 
Books  of  the  Great  Author.  Both  are  revelations  made 
by  Him  to  man;  the  earlier  telling  of  God-made  har- 
monies coming  up  from  the  deep  past  and  rising  to  their 
height  when  man  appeared ;  the  latter  teaching  man's  rela- 
tion to  his  Maker,  and  speaking  of  loftier  harmonies  in 
the  eternal  future." 


THE  BIBLICAL  BASIS  OF  FOREIGN  MISSIONS 


''Go  yc  therefore,  and  make  disciples  of  all  the  nations, 
baptizing  thc?n  into  the  name  of  the  Father  and  of  the 
Son  and  of  the  Holy  Spirit:  teaching  them  to  observe  all 
things  whatsoever  I  have  commanded  you',  and  lo,  I  am 
with  you  alway,  even  unto  the  end  of  the  luorld." — 
Matthew  28:19,  20. 

"Heathenism  was  the  seeking  religion,  Judaism  the 
hoping  religion.  Christianity  is  the  reality  of  what  Heath- 
enism sought  and  Judaism  hoped  for." — Luthardt. 

"The  religion  of  Jesus  Christ  is  a  missionary  religion. 
The  work  and  example  of  its  Founder  destined  it  to  be 
such.  Its  early  spirit  was  missionary  and  its  history  is  a  mis- 
sionary history.  Whenever  it  has  lost  its  missionary  quality 
it  has  so  far  lost  its  character  and  ceased  to  be  itself.  Its 
characteristic  temper  has  always  been  missionary,  its  re- 
vivals of  life  and  power  have  been  attended  by  quickening 
of  missionary  energy,  and  missionary  activity  is  one  of  the 
truest  signs  of  loyalty  to  its  character  and  its  Lord." — 
William  Newton  Clarke,  D.D. 


THE  BIBLICAL  BASIS  OF  FOREIGN  MISSIONS 

THERE  are  many  grounds  upon  which  we 
might  urge  the  necessity  for  an  aggressive 
Missionary  propaganda.  Among  these  may 
be  mentioned  the  following: 

First:  The  superiority  of  our  Christian  civilization 
over  the  decadent  and  effete  civilizations  of  the  non- 
Christian  world.  Wherever  the  Gospel  of  Christ  becomes 
a  dominant  factor  in  the  life  of  any  people  it  establishes 
a  new  basis  or  new  conception  of  civilization. 

Second:  The  value  to  us  of  the  reflex  influence  of 
missions — the  knowledge  of  Philology,  Ethnology,  An- 
thropology, History  and  Geography  has  been  much  en- 
riched by  the  labors  of  the  missionaries.  There  is  scarcely 
a  branch  of  science  that  is  not  largely  indebted  to  the  dis- 
coveries and  contributions  of  men  and  women  who  have 
gone  into  distant  lands  for  the  express  purpose  of  carrying 
the  gospel  to  the  heathen. 

Third:  The  commercial  value  of  missionary  enter- 
prise; for  it  must  be  admitted  that  commerce  follows 
the  Bible  into  all  lands  where  the  gospel  is  carried.  The 
economic  value  of  redemption  is  shown  in  the  wages  of 
an  ordinary  day  laborer  in  different  countries.  As  men 
rise  in  the  scale  of  civilization  their  wants  increase  and 
new  demands  are  created  for  the  products  of  our  factories 
and  fields  in  Christian  lands. 

Fourth :  As  a  matter  of  statesmanship  it  pays  to  evan- 
gelize the  heathen.     It  is  only  a  few  years  since  China, 

31 


32  THE  OLD  GOSPEL 

Japan  and  Korea  were  hermit  nations  under  the  sway  of 
the  most  despotic  rulers  and  refusing  to  enter  into  treaty 
relations  with  the  great  Occidental  nations.  Now,  through 
the  efforts  of  our  Christian  missionaries  very  largely,  these 
nations  are  open  to  the  world  and  their  representatives  are 
at  Washington  and  Paris  and  London,  and  even  Turkey 
has  so  far  adopted  the  Western  forms  of  government  as 
to  have  a  parliament,  and  China  a  president. 

But  to  those  of  us  who  accept  the  Bible  as  an  inspired 
Book,  giving  us  the  history  and  philosophy  of  God's  plan 
for  the  redemption  of  a  lost  world,  the  chief  argument 
for  the  carrying  on  of  any  missionary  enterprise  must  ever 
be  the  message  of  the  Book.  Here  we  get  our  marching 
orders  and  it  is  ours  to  follow  the  divine  signals  as  therein 
revealed. 

Even  if  our  civilization  were  no  better  than  the  civiliza- 
tions of  the  non-Christian  world,  still  from  the  viewpoint 
of  the  Bible  we  would  be  under  obligation  to  send  the 
gospel  to  the  heathen.  If  there  were  no  commercial  ad- 
vantage to  be  gained  and  if  the  missionaries  contributed 
nothing  to  the  general  store  of  the  world's  knowledge, 
still  the  Church  of  Jesus  Christ  would  be  under  the  same 
great  obligation  to  go  into  all  the  world  and  preach  the 
gospel  to  every  creature.  For  be  it  remembered,  our  first 
and  highest  obligation  is  not  to  the  heathen  for  their  own 
sakes,  nor  to  the  business  world,  nor  to  ourselves  as  in- 
tellectual beings  seeking  for  more  knowledge,  but  to  our 
God  and  His  Son  Jesus  Christ. 

It  requires  only  a  very  superficial  knowledge  of  the 
Bible  to  discover  that  from  beginning  to  end  it  is  a  mis- 
sionary book.    The  extension  of  the  kingdom  of  God  over 


IN  THE  NEW  CENTURY  33 

all  the  earth  is  the  supreme  purpose  for  which  this  divine 
revelation  was  given  to  men.  The  whole  inspired  record 
from  Genesis  to  Revelation  is  a  missionary  book.  It  was 
written  by  men  who  w^re  thoroughly  imbued  with  the 
missionary  spirit.  Abraham  left  Ur  of  the  Chaldees  that 
he  might  establish  for  all  time  and  thoroughout  all  the 
world  the  truth  that  man  in  his  normal  condition  walks 
by  faith  and  not  by  sight,  and  the  promises  made  to  him 
by  God  was  that  in  him  and  in  his  seed  should  all  the 
families  of  the  earth  be  blessed.  The  writers  of  the  Bible 
were  nearly  all  engaged  in  missionary  work  of  some  kind 
and  wrote  for  direct  missionary  purposes.  Some  of  them 
sought  to  extend  the  reign  of  God  over  the  hearts  of  men 
by  the  sword,  others  by  statesmanship  and  diplomacy, 
and  others  by  preaching  and  teaching.  From  the  Penta- 
teuch to  Revelation  the  waiters  had  for  their  supreme 
purpose  the  extension  of  the  knowledge  of  the  true  God 
and  His  son  Jesus  Christ  among  the  heathen. 

The  belief  that  God  intended  his  Church  to  be  a  Mis- 
sionary Church  is  warranted  by  the  predictions  of  the 
Bible  concerning  the  heathen.  Beginning  with  the  promise 
made  in  the  beginning  of  the  world  that  the  seed  of  the 
woman  should  ultimately  destroy  the  head  of  the  serpent, 
we  find  running  through  the  entire  w^eb  of  Scripture  a 
golden  chain  of  promises  and  prophecies  looking  to  the 
final  bringing  of  the  kingdoms  of  the  world  under  the 
sway  of  the  Prince  of  Peace. 

In  Isaiah  9:6,  7  we  have  the  foregleam  of  the  incarna- 
tion and  the  prediction  in  these  words:  "For  unto  us  a 
child  is  born,  unto  us  a  son  is  given ;  and  the  government 
shall  be  upon  his  shoulders:  and  his  name  shall  be  called 


34  THE  OLD  GOSPEL 

Wonderful,  Counsellor,  Mighty  God,  Everlasting  Father, 
Prince  of  Peace.  Of  the  Increase  of  his  government  and 
of  peace  there  shall  be  no  end,  upon  the  throne  of  David 
and  upon  his  kingdom,  to  establish  it  and  to  uphold  It 
with  justice  and  with  righteousness  from  henceforth  even 
for  ever." 

In  Daniel  2:44  we  read:  ''In  the  days  of  those  kings 
shall  the  God  of  heaven  set  up  a  kingdom,  which  shall 
never  be  destroyed,  nor  shall  the  sovereignty  thereof  be 
left  to  another  people;  but  It  shall  break  in  pieces  and 
consume  all  these  kingdoms,  and  It  shall  stand  for  ever." 

In  Daniel  7 127  there  is  the  very  definite  prophecy  which 
reads:  "And  the  kingdom  and  the  dominion,  and  the 
greatness  of  the  kingdoms  under  the  whole  heaven,  shall 
be  given  to  the  people  of  the  saints  of  the  Most  High: 
his  kingdom  is  an  everlasting  kingdom,  and  all  domin- 
ions shall  serve  and  obey  him." 

In  Matthew  24:14  we  have  Christ's  own  words  de- 
claring: "And  this  gospel  of  the  kingdom  shall  be  preach- 
ed in  the  whole  world  for  a  testimony  unto  all  the  nations; 
and  then  shall  the  end  come." 

And  on  another  occasion,  after  his  resurrection  from  the 
dead,  in  talking  with  his  disciples  about  their  preparation 
for  their  future  work  as  apostles,  Luke  tells  us  that  he  then 
opened  their  understanding,  that  they  might  understand 
the  Scriptures,  and  said  unto  them:  "Thus  it  Is  written, 
that  the  Christ  should  suffer,  and  rise  again  from  the  dead 
the  third  day:  and  that  repentance  and  remission  of  sins 
should  be  preached  in  his  name  unto  all  the  nations,  begin- 
ning from  Jerusalem."  Here  it  is  taken  for  granted  by 
the  Saviour  that  the  Old  Testament  Scriptures  furnish  a 


IN  THE  NEW  CENTURY  35 

sufficient  warrant  for  the  preaching  of  repentance  and 
remission  of  sins  through  Christ  to  all  the  nations  of  the 
world;  and  St.  Paul  in  his  letter  to  the  Romans  touches 
upon  this  same  thought  and  declares  that  ''whosoever  shall 
call  upon  the  name  of  the  Lord  shall  be  saved."  But, 
he  asks,  "How  then  shall  they  call  on  him  in  whom  they 
have  not  believed?  and  how  shall  they  believe  in  him 
whom  they  have  not  heard?  and  how  shall  they  hear 
without  a  preacher?  and  how  shall  they  preach  except  they 
be  sent?"  Rome  10:13,  15. 

That  these  predictions  are  in  line  with  the  definite 
purpose  of  God  as  revealed  from  age  to  age  will  appear 
from  a  comparison  of  the  very  plain  commands  given  by 
God  to  the  leaders  of  his  Church  in  every  great  epoch  of 
the  world's  history.  In  I  Chronicles  16:23  there  is  the 
command  to  the  Church  of  the  Old  Dispensation: 

"Sing  unto  Jehovah,  all  the  earth; 
Show  forth  his  salvation  from  day  to  day. 
Declare  his  glory  among  the  nations, 
His  marvellous  works  among  all  the  people." 

In  that  age  when  David  the  sweet  singer  was  upon 
the  throne  of  Israel  this  command  was  breathed  from  the 
harp  of  the  poet  king: 

"Declare  his  glory  among  the  nations, 
His  marvellous  works  among  all  the  peoples. 
For  great  is  Jehovah,  and  greatly  to  be  praised : 
He  is  to  be  feared  above  all  gods. 
For  all  the  gods  of  the  peoples  are  idols: 
But  Jehovah  made  the  heavens." 


36  THE  OLD  GOSPEL 

Again  we  read: 

"Ask  of  me,  and   I  will  give  thee  the  nations  for  thine 

inheritance, 
And  the  uttermost  parts  of  the  earth  for  thy  possession." 

At  a  later  day  Jonah  was  sent  to  preach  the  salvation 
of  the  true  God  to  the  people  of  Nineveh.  "And  the 
word  of  Jehovah  came  unto  Jonah  the  second  time,  saying, 
Arise,  go  unto  Nineveh,  that  great  city,  and  preach  unto 
it  the  preaching  that  I  bid  thee.  So  Jonah  arose  and  went 
unto  Nineveh,  according  to  the  word  of  Jehovah.  Now 
Nineveh  was  an  exceeding  great  city,  of  three  days' 
journey." 

Now  it  is  evident  that  it  was  not  for  the  sake  of  giving 
them  a  better  civilization,  for  the  Ninevites  were  more 
highly  civilized  than  were  the  Jews.  It  was  not  for  the 
sake  of  increasing  the  commercial  prosperity  of  the  nations, 
for  Nineveh  was  the  great  commercial  metropolis  of  the 
world.  God  sent  Jonah  to  Nineveh  because  the  people 
of  that  city  needed  God.  They  needed  salvation  from  sin. 
They  needed  moral  regeneration:  and  what  the  people  of 
Nineveh  needed  then  the  people  of  every  great  city  in  the 
world  need  now. 

But  the  command  to  the  Church  of  our  time  is  even 
more  explicit  than  that  to  Jonah.  It  is  from  the  lips  of 
the  Divine  Master  and  embodies  almost  his  last  expressed 
wish:  "And  Jesus  came  to  them  and  spake  unto  them, 
saying.  All  authority  hath  been  given  unto  me  in  heaven 
and  on  earth.  Go  ye,  therefore,  and  make  disciples  of  all 
the  nations,  baptizing  them  into  the  name  of  the  Father 


IN  THE   NEW  CENTURY  37 

and  of  the  Son  and  of  the  Holy  Spirit:  teaching  them  to 
observe  all  things  whatsoever  I  have  commanded  you :  and 
lo,  I  am  w^ith  you  alway,  even  unto  the  end  of  the  world." 

Those  who  argue  that  the  heathen  religions  are  good 
enough  for  the  heathen  should  remember  that  when  our 
Saviour  uttered  this  command  he  did  it  with  the  full 
knowledge  of  what  these  heathen  religions  were  and  what 
they  were  able  to  do  for  their  votaries,  and  yet  he  said, 
"Go!"  With  this  fact  in  mind  dare  any  one  who  accepts 
the  Bible  as  a  divine  revelation  and  Christ  as  his  own 
Saviour  say  that  the  heathen  religions  are  good  enough  for 
the  heathen?  To  do  so  is  to  set  up  his  frail  judgment 
against  the  judgment  of  Christ  as  to  the  comparative 
merits  of  the  world's  great  religions. 

But  there  are  others  who  object  to  sending  out  mis- 
sionaries on  the  ground  that  the  task  is  so  great  that  it 
can  never  be  accomplished.  There  are  so  many  millions 
of  heathen,  and  they  are  so  sunken  in  vice  and  supersti- 
tion, that  there  is  no  possible  hope  of  ever  saving  them. 
On  the  biblical  basis  of  missions,  and  on  that  alone,  can 
this  argument  be  met  and  successfully  answered.  But  the 
individual  who  accepts  Christ  as  an  authority  must  admit 
that  he  must  have  given  this  command  with  a  full  knowl- 
edge of  all  the  difficulties  involved  in  carrying  it  out. 
Had  we  lived  when  Christ  was  on  earth  we  would  have 
likely  said  that  it  was  unthinkable  that  within  two  thou- 
sand years  the  greater  part  of  Europe  and  America  would 
be  nominally  Christian.  Heathenism  was  then  world- 
wide in  its  extent  and  w^as  strongly  entrenched  behind 
the  prejudices  of  the  people  to  whom  the  gospel  was  to 
be  preached;  but  in  spite  of  this  it  had  permeated  the 


38  THE  OLD  GOSPEL 

Roman  Empire  within  three  hundred  years.  Those  who 
use  this  argument  against  the  missionary  propaganda  for- 
get the  promise  given  with  the  command:  "All  authority 
hath  been  given  unto  me."  Mark  you,  he  does  not  say 
that  all  authority  or  power  is  given  to  the  Church  or 
to  its  missionaries,  but  to  Christ  himself,  and  the  Church 
can  have  just  so  much  of  that  power  or  authority  as  she 
is  willing  to  appropriate  and   use. 

The  whole  problem  then  resolves  itself  into  this:  If 
the  Church  is  obedient  to  the  great  commission  and  goes 
forth  to  preach  the  gospel  to  all  nations,  it  is  then  the 
power  of  heaven  against  the  power  of  vice  and  ignorance 
and  superstition.  Our  business  is  to  give  the  heathen  the 
knowledge  of  Christ;  it  is  God's  business  to  make  that 
knowledge  effective  in  overcoming  the  moral  darkness  of 
the  heathen  world.  Are  we  willing  to  do  our  part  and 
trust  God  to  do  His?  Whatever  may  be  one's  views  as  to 
the  wisdom  of  missionary  work  and  the  validity  of  other 
motives  for  engaging  in  missionary  efforts,  no  one  who 
believes  the  Bible  can  doubt  God's  power  to  overcome  sin 
and  heathen  superstition  when  those  who  have  the  gospel 
heed  the  Saviour's  last  great  command  and  give  God  the 
right  of  way.  "All  authority  hath  been  given  unto  me 
In  heaven  and  on  earth.  Go  ye  therefore."  The  Church 
must  go  trusting  in  the  divine  power  and  the  divine  wis- 
dom and  willing  to  follow  where  God  leads  the  way. 

It  Is  plain  if  the  missionary  enterprise  of  the  Church 
Is  to  continue  through  the  years  and  be  carried  on  with 
increased  zeal  and  energy,  the  motives  which  impel  the 
people  to  such  effort,  as  another  has  very  clearly  expressed 
it,  must  be  strong,  self-justifying,  permanent  and  Scrip- 


IN  THE  NEW  CENTURY  39 

tural.  That  many  of  the  old  arguments  for  missions  and 
some  of  the  new  ones  now  being  urged  are  neither  per- 
manent nor  Scriptural  can  easily  be  shown.  The  grounds 
mentioned  in  the  opening  of  this  chapter  afford  a  good  il- 
lustration of  what  I  mean.  All  of  them  are  strong  and  self- 
justifying,  but  some  of  them  are  neither  permanent  nor 
Scriptural.  A  careful  analysis  of  the  Scriptures  herein 
quoted  leads  to  the  conclusion  that  the  two  great  motives 
for  missionary  enterprise  are:  First,  because  of  what  mis- 
sionary efifort  means  to  Jesus  Christ  who  made  salvation 
possible  for  all  men  by  His  death  upon  the  cross,- and,  sec- 
ond, because  of  what  missionary  enterprise  means  to  us  who 
have  the  gospel  of  Christ.  In  proportion  as  we  appreciate 
what  Christ's  salvation  means  to  us  will  we  be  interested 
in  giving  that  salvation  to  others.  If  we  esteem  our  salva- 
tion as  an  incalcuable  blessing,  we  will  be  anxious  that 
all  men  should  have  that  blessing;  but  if  we  place  little 
value  upon  our  religion,  we  will  not  be  likely  to  have 
much  interest  in  giving  a  knowledge  of  it  to  others  at 
home  or  abroad. 

In  the  words  of  Dr.  William  Newton  Clarke:  "God's 
best  and  richest  gift  appreciated  brings  its  own  call  to 
missionary'  endeavor.  Hence  the  missionary  impulse  de- 
pends for  its  vitality  upon  the  vigor  of  the  Christian  life 
in  the  Christian  people.  Only  a  living  Church  can  per- 
manently be  a  strong  missionary  Church,  for  only  a  living 
Church  can  feel  the  value  of  its  blessings  and  be  impelled 
to  offer  them  to  the  world." 

In  the  light  of  these  Scriptural  motives  the  argument 
that  is  so  often  made  against  missions,  viz.,  that  the 
heathen  may  have  another  chance,  counts  for  nothing,  for 


40  THE  OLD  GOSPEL 

the  Bible  answers,  that  this  is  our  only  chance  to  give  them 
the  blessings  we  have.  This  is  our  only  chance  to  obey 
the  Saviour's  command: — "Go  ye."  Disobedience  may 
not  mean  the  eternal  death  of  the  heathen,  but  it  may 
mean,  yea,  it  does  mean,  disobedience  on  our  part  and  con- 
sequent loss  of  God's  favor  and  co-operation.  The  first 
essential  for  an  active,  aggressive  missionary  propaganda 
is  a  strong,  vigorous,  spiritually  awakened  Church  at 
home.  The  Church  at  home  must  be  depended  upon  to 
furnish  the  base  of  supplies.  The  missionaries,  the  money 
and  the  inspiration  to  evangelize  the  world  must  be  fur- 
nished by  the  church  in  the  homeland  for  a  long  time  yet 
to  come. 

"Put  it  first — the  great  commission, 
Put  it  first — the  great  command ; 
Put  it  first — our  standing  orders, 
Put  it  first — on  sea  and  land. 
Put  it  first — 'twill  draw  us  closer. 
Put  it  first — 'twill  banish  strife; 
Put  it  first — the  rest  will  follow; 
Put  it  first — 'twill  bless  our  life." 

In  the  light  of  all  that  has  been  said  is  it  not  very  plain 
and  clear  what  Saint  Paul  meant  when  he  wrote  to  the 
Ephesians,  saying:  "And  He  gave  some  to  be  apostles; 
and  some,  prophets;  and  some,  evangelists;  and  some, 
pastors  and  teachers ;  for  the  perfecting  of  the  saints,  unto 
the  work  of  ministering,  unto  the  building  up  of  the  body 
of  Christ:  till  we  all  attain  unto  the  unity  of  the  faith, 
and  of  the  knowledge  of  the  Son  of  God,  unto  a  full- 
grown  man,  unto  the  measure  of  the  stature  of  the  fullness 
of  Christ?" 


FIGURING  OUT  THE  PROFITS  IN  A  LOSING 
GAME 


"For  zuhat  shall  it  profit  a  man,  if  he  shall  gain  the 
li'hole  ivorld,  and  lose  his  own  soulf" — Mark  8:36. 

"Seek  thyself  only  in  Christ,  and  not  in  thyself ;  so  wilt 
thou   find  thyself  in  Him  for  eternity." — Luther. 


FIGURING  OUT  THE  PROFITS  IN  A  LOSING 
GAME 

IF  you  and  I  had  never  seen  a  Bible  before  and  were 
to  have  come  upon  this  question, — "What  doth  it 
profit  a  man  to  gain  the  w^hole  world  and  forfeit 
his  life?" — out  of  its  connection,  we  would  no 
doubt  have  been  a  good  deal  surprised  to  learn  that  it  was 
the  language  of  a  young  Jew  who  lived  nearly  two  thou- 
sand'years  ago.  It  sounds  as  if  it  were  the  language  of  a 
sagacious,  long-headed  business  man  of  our  own  genera- 
tion. "What  doth  it  profit?"  is  a  very  modern  question, 
we  are  apt  to  think.  It  breathes  the  spirit  of  the  twentieth 
century.  It  is  about  the  first  question  that  is  asked  in 
regard  to  any  enterprise.  It  matters  not  whether  it  is  the 
digging  of  a  canal  across  the  Isthmus  of  Panama  or  the 
building  of  a  transcontinental  railroad  or  the  opening  of 
a  new  bank  or  the  endowing  of  a  college  or  a  hospital  or 
the  starting  of  a  little  mission  church  out  on  the  frontier, 
the  question  at  once  comes  up — "What  will  it  profit?" 
Now  I  do  not  say  that  the  spirit  is  wrong  that  prompts 
the  asking  of  that  question:  what  I  do  find  fault  with  is 
that  we  do  not  make  enough  of  the  question.  We  do  not 
ask  it  often  enough  or  with  enough  seriousness.  It  is  a 
very  legitimate  question  and  should  be  asked  not  only  in 
regard  to  our  business  ventures  but  also  in  regard  to  our 
beliefs  and  our  moral  actions.  What  doth  it  profit  a 
man  to  believe  in  the  inspiration  of  the  Bible?  What  doth 
it  profit  a  man  to  believe  in  the  immortality  of  the  soul? 

43 


44  THE  OLD  GOSPEL 

What  doth  it  profit  a  man  to  believe  in  the  divinity  of 
Christ?  These  are  questions  of  greater  moment  than 
those  before  mentioned;  but  men  are  not  asking  these 
questions  with  as  much  concern  as  they  ask  w^hat  it  will 
profit  where  dollars  and  cents  are  concerned.  What  does 
it  profit  a  man  to  lead  a  clean,  moral,  upright  life,  is 
a  more  important  question  than,  what  does  it  profit  a 
man  to  invest  money  in  any  kind  of  earthly  securities? 

From  the  view-point  of  this  world  alone,  to  say  nothing 
of  the  future,  it  is  always  profitable  to  live  up  to  one's 
highest  ideals  and  to  believe  those  time-honored  doctrines 
that  have  come  down  to  us  from  the  wisest  and  best  minds 
of  the  past  ages.  If  it  could  really  be  proven  that  belief 
in  these  teachings  of  the  Christian  faith  did  not  produce 
the  kind  of  character  that  counts  for  most  in  this  life, 
we  might  disregard  these  teachings;  but  the  combined 
efforts  of  freethinkers  and  atheists  have  failed  to  show  that 
disbelief  in  these  great  fundamental  doctrines  of  Jesus 
develops  better  men  and  women.  The  superiority  ot  oui 
Christian  civilization  to  the  civilizations  of  the  non-Chris- 
tian world  would  seem  to  create  a  strong  presumption  that 
these  Christian  doctrines  have  a  positive  value  for  this 
life.  If  one  casts  aside  these  teachings  as  of  no  value  what 
has  he  gained? 

This  passage  affords  a  good  illustration  of  how  easy  It 
Is  for  us  to  read  Into  the  Bible  what  the  Divine  Author 
never  Intended  us  to  get  out  of  the  Bible.  The  text  Is 
often  interpreted  as  If  It  were  meant  to  teach  that  ever}'- 
one  must  make  a  choice  between  gaining  the  world  and 
losing  his  soul.  That  If  one  gains  the  good  things  of  the 
world  or  makes  an  effort  to  gain  the  things  of  this  world 


IN  THE   NEW  CENTURY  45 

he  is  sure  to  lose  his  soul.  I,  for  one,  do  not  believe 
that  our  Saviour  meant  to  set  any  such  alternative 
before  men.  I  believe  that  God  intends  the  good 
things  of  this  world  for  His  children,  and  the  more 
rapidly  the  world  and  its  wealth  pass  into  the  hands 
of  the  followers  of  Christ  the  better  it  will  be  for 
all  concerned.  I  believe  it  is  the  duty  of  every  true  child 
of  God  to  make  an  honest  effort  to  get  just  as  much  of 
this  world's  goods  as  he  can  get  honestly,  and  then  use 
it  in  the  service  of  his  Lord.  It  does  not  seem  reasonable 
to  me  that  God  has  created  the  world  with  all  its  wealth 
and  treasure  for  the  wicked.  It  is  the  plain  duty  of  every 
Christian  to  be  thrifty  and  industrious  and  to  get  all  that 
he  can ;  for  are  we  not  told  that  the  righteous  shall  inherit 
the  earth  and  that  the  kingdoms  of  this  world  are  to 
become  the  kingdoms  of  our  Lord? 

This  passage  is  also  sometimes  interpreted  as  if  it  taught 
that  by  giving  up  the  world  one  could  save  his  soul.  There 
can  be  no  more  dangerous  error  than  this.  That  was  the 
mistake  made  by  the  monks  of  the  dark  ages,  w^ho  thought 
that  by  withdrawing  from  the  world  and  shutting  them- 
selves up  in  old  monasteries  or  in  the  cloisters  they  could 
save  their  souls.  It  is  not  by  asceticism  or  withdrawing 
from  the  world  that  we  are  to  be  saved,  but  by  personal 
faith  in  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  who  when  he  was  here  on 
earth  did  not  withdraw  from  the  world  but  went  about 
doing  good.  And  did  He  not  say,  "I  have  given  you  an 
example,  that  ye  also  should  do  as  I  have  done?"  Our 
salvation  is  not  determined  by  whether  we  have  much  or 
little  of  this  world  in  our  possession.  It  is  not,  in  the 
last  analysis,  a  question  of  one's  bank  account,  but  it  is  a 


46  THE  OLD  GOSPEL 

question  of  character,  and  character  is  determined  by  our 
attitude  toward  Christ  and  His  moral  ideals. 

Just  what,  then,  did  the  Master  intend  us  to  under- 
stand by  this  question?  This:  That  a  man  or  a  woman 
makes  a  bad  bargain  when  he  or  she  barters  away  his  or 
her  eternal  interests  for  the  sake  of  some  temporal  advan- 
tage. "The  things  which  are  seen  are  temporal,  but  the 
things  which  are  not  seen  are  eternal."  Somewhere  be- 
tween the  cradle  and  the  grave  Satan  appears  to  each  one 
of  us  as  he  appeared  to  our  Lord,  and  shows  us  the  king- 
doms of  this  world  and  the  glory  of  them,  and  says,  "All 
these  will  I  give  thee  if  thou  wilt  fall  down  and  worship 
me."  To  some  the  temptation  comes  often,  to  some  only 
once,  but  it  comes  to  all,  and  one  makes  a  serious  mistake 
when  he  surrenders  conscience  or  character  for  the  sake 
of  worldly  gain. 

There  are  spiritual  things  that  money  cannot  buy.  In 
Irving  Bacheller's  book,  "Eben  Holden,"  there  is  a  senti- 
ment expressed  by  the  old  poet  of  the  woods  which  has  a 
world  of  truth  in  it  that  we  ought  never  to  forget: 

"There's  a  money  of  the  soul,  my  boy,  ye'll  find  in  after 

years ; 
Its  pennies  are  the  sweat-drops  and  its  dollars  are  the 

tears  ; 
And  love  is  the  redeemin'  gold  that  measures  what  they're 

worth, 
And  ye'll  git  as  much  in  heaven  as  ye've  given  out  on 

earth. 

"For  the  record  o'  yer  doin'  I  believe  the  soul  is  planned 
With  an  automatic  register  to  tell  jlst  how  ye  stand, 


IN   THE   NEW  CENTURY  47 

And  it  won't  take  any  cipherin'  to  show  that  fearful  day, 
If  ye've  multiplied  yer  talents  well  or  thrown   'em  all 
away." 

I  have  read  of  a  child  playing  by  the  seashore  who  found 
a  pretty  stone  which  she  traded  to  a  young  sailor  for  a 
glass  prism.  Through  the  glass  the  white  ray  of  sunlight 
was  broken  into  all  the  beautiful  colors  of  the  rainbow, 
but  it  was  only  a  piece  of  glass  and  nothing  more  couid 
be  made  of  it.  The  stone  which  she  bartered  away  for 
this  piece  of  glass  was  a  rare  agate  capable  of  being  ground 
by  the  lapidary  into  a  gem  fit  to  be  placed  in  the  crown 
of  a  king.  God  has  intrusted  to  each  individual  an  im- 
mortal soul  with  capabilities  surpassing  those  of  the  agate, 
and  multitudes  are  bartering  their  souls  away  for  the 
tinsel  of  time  that  is  as  worthless  as  the  piece  of  glass  which 
the  child  received  for  the  agate. 

"What  doth  it  profit  a  man  to  gain  the  whole  world 
and  forfeit  his  life?" 

But  the  passage  throws  an  interesting  light  upon  Christ's 
estimate  of  the  value  of  the  soul  in  relation  to  other  things. 
It  is  the  thing  of  supreme  value,  because  it  is  the  im- 
mortal part  of  man.  When  the  body  with  all  its  strength 
and  beauty  has  returned  to  dust  the  soul  will  live  on  either 
with  Christ  in  glory  or  shut  out  from  the  presence  of  God 
for  ever.  The  soul  is  of  supreme  value  when  compared 
with  the  wealth  of  this  world  because  God  alone  can  create 
a  soul.  Men  create  fortunes  w^ith  their  own  hands  and 
skill  and  wisdom,  and  a  fortune  if  lost  may  be  regained 
by  toil  and  industry;  but  a  soul  once  lost  is  lost  for  evei. 
The  value  of  the  soul  in  comparison  with  other  things  is 


48  THE  OLD  GOSPEL 

seen  in  the  fact  that  Christ  died  to  redeem  it.  He  would 
not  have  left  His  home  with  the  Father  for  all  the  material 
wealth  of  the  world,  but  to  save  a  soul  He  left  all  and 
came  to  our  earth  and  died  upon  the  cross  on  Calvary. 

"What  doth  it  profit  a  man?"  The  word  profit  im- 
plies something  invested.  There  can  be  no  profit  where 
there  is  nothing  invested.  A  man  may  have  a  house  and 
lot  given  to  him  and  may  sell  it  for  several  thousand  dol- 
lars, but  there  was  no  per  cent,  of  profit  because  there 
was  nothing  invested.  The  serious  question  is,  what 
kind  of  investments  are  we  making?  Are  we  in- 
vesting for  time  or  for  eternity — for  God  or  for 
self?  If  we  are  investing  our  talents,  our  time  and  our 
energies,  for  God  and  for  eternity,  our  dividends  will  be 
in  kind;  but  if  we  are  investing  our  talents,  our  time  and 
our  strength,  for  the  here  and  the  now,  the  dividends  will 
be  of  the  kind  that  must  be  left  here  when  the  soul  goes 
to  render  its  final  account  at  the  bar  of  God. 

"What  doth  it  profit  a  man  to  gain  the  whole  world 
and  forfeit  his  life?"  It  is  a  principle  in  business  that 
it  is  not  the  amount  of  the  original  investment  that  deter- 
mines the  ultimate  profits,  so  much  as  the  character  of  the 
investment.  A  man  may  invest  a  million  dollars  in  such 
a  way  that  at  the  end  of  twenty  years  he  will  be  a  bank- 
rupt. On  the  other  hand  one  may  invest  a  thousand 
dollars  in  such  a  way  that  at  the  end  of  twenty  years  he 
will  be  a  millionaire.  This  principle  holds  in  our  moral 
and  spiritual  investments.  It  is  not  so  much  the  original 
endowment  with  which  we  start  in  life  that  determines 
the  ultimate  profits  as  it  is  the  use  we  make  of  our  endow- 
ment.   A  little  invested  for  God  may  bring  greater  profit 


IN  THE  NEW  CENTURY  49 

than  a  great  deal  Invested  for  self. 

"Lay  not  up  for  yourselves  treasures  upon  the  earth, 
where  moth  and  rust  consume,  and  where  thieves  break 
through  and  steal ;  but  lay  up  for  yourselves  treasures  in 
heaven,  where  neither  moth  nor  rust  doth  consume,  and 
where  thieves  do  not  break  through  nor  steal;  for  where 
thy  treasure  is,  there  will  thy  heart  be  also." 


THE  CHURCH  AND  THE  WORKING  MAN  OF 
THE  TWENTIETH  CENTURY 


"The  laborer  is  worthy  of  his  reward.*' — /   Timothy 

5:18. 

''Labor  troubles  come  as  the  result  of  an  advancing 
civilization.  Social  unrest  is  sometimes  an  indication  of 
social  progress.  There  are  no  labor  troubles  in  Darkest 
Africa.  Therefore  the  cloud  on  the  industrial  horizon  has 
its  silver  lining,  if  one  will  but  look  for  it.'* — Charles 
Stelzle. 


THE  CHURCH  AND  THE  WORKING  MAN  OF 
THE  TWENTIETH  CENTURY 

LABOR  lies  at  the  foundation  of  all  true  pros- 
perity and  progress.  We  have  here  in  this 
country  of  ours  fertile  soil,  valuable  quarries, 
rich  mines,  and  extensive  forests  of  valuable 
timber.  Our  resources  of  every  kind  are  abundant,  but 
without  labor  these  resources  are  of  little  or  no  value  to 
anybody.  Fields  must  be  cultivated,  mines  and  quarries 
must  be  developed,  forests  cleared  aw^ay,  and  their  prod- 
ucts transformed  into  things  useful  to  man. 

As  the  working  class  rises  in  the  scale  of  prosperity 
and  intelligence  all  other  classes  are  benefited  and  the  inter- 
ests of  the  country  advanced.  The  working  people  are 
the  foundation  upon  which  must  be  raised  the  superstruc- 
ture of  the  nation's  prosperity.  They  are  the  backbone  of 
the  national  wealth.  Given  an  intelligent,  industrious  and 
thrifty  working  class,  and  all  other  classes  will  be  im- 
proved. Given  a  poor,  poorly  paid  and  hopeless  working 
class,  vnth  the  life  crushed  out  of  them,  and  all  other 
classes  will  be  dragged  down. 

The  countries  and  nations  that  have  done  most  to  pro- 
tect the  laborer  in  his  rights  and  to  secure  to  him  the  just 
reward  of  his  toil  have  grown  rapidly  in  wealth  and  in- 
fluence; while  those  nations  that  have  oppressed  the  toiler 
have  invariably  suffered  in  consequence. 

To  prove  this  you  have  only  to  contrast  England,  Ger- 
many and  America  with  Russia,  Turkey  and  Old  Mexico. 

53 


54  ITHE  OLD  GOSPEL 

In  England,  for  more  than  a  hundred  years,  laws  have 
been  enacted  looking  toward  the  betterment  of  the  work- 
ing class.  In  Germany  I  think  the  same  thing  is  true. 
Even  better  laws  to  protect  the  interests  of  the  working- 
man  are  to  be  found  in  Germany  to-day  than  perhaps  in 
any  other  country.  For  the  last  forty  or  fifty  years  there 
has  been  an  upward  tendency  in  the  kind  of  laws  enacted 
in  the  interests  of  the  working  people  of  this  country. 
To-day  the  working  man  gets  from  50%  to  100%  more 
wages  for  20%  less  time  than  he  did  fifty  years  ago. 

In  Russia,  in  Turkey  and  in  Old  Mexico  the  laborer 
is  poorly  paid.  He  is  a  peasant,  or  peon,  or  little  better 
than  slave. 

Somewhere  I  think  I  have  read  this  statement,  and  I 
suspect  it  is  true:  In  Old  Mexico  lead  and  zinc  ore 
can  be  mined  and  sold  at  a  profit,  for  $13  a  ton,  while  in 
the  Carthage,  Mo.,  district  lead  and  zinc  ore  cannot  be 
mined  at  a  profit  for  less  than  $38  a  ton.  The  difference 
is  not  so  much  in  the  condition  of  the  mines,  as  it  is  in  the 
difference  in  the  workingmen.  Those  men  are  living  on 
food  that  we  would  not  feed  to  our  dogs.  The  working- 
man  is  better  paid,  is  better  housed  and  is  better  clothed 
in  the  United  States  than  he  is  in  Mexico. 

There  are  two  erroneous  theories  that  must  be  carefully 
guarded  against  in  any  serious  consideration  of  the  subject 
of  capital  and  labor. 

One  of  these  erroneous  theories  is  that  labor  is  only 
a  commodity  to  be  bought  at  the  lowest  possible  price  01 
to  be  sold  to  the  highest  bidder.  This  is  an  erroneous 
theory  held  by  many  men  who  employ  labor.  They  say, 
"Why,  labor  is  just  a  commodity  like  any  other  com- 


IN  THE  NEW  CENTURY  55 

modity,  to  be  bought  at  the  lowest  price,  or  to  be  sold  to 
the  highest  bidder."  They  forget  that  back  of  the  com- 
modity is  a  man;  that  labor  is  a  commodity  plus  an  im- 
mortal soul;  that  it  is  different  from  every  other  com- 
modity in  the  fact  that  back  of  the  thing  sold  there  is  an 
intelligent  being  created  in  the  image  of  God. 

The  man  who  sells  a  ton  of  hay  has  no  interest  in  the 
ton  of  hay  beyond  getting  the  market  price.  It  does  not 
make  any  difference  to  him  where  that  ton  of  hay  is  used 
or  how  it  is  used.  The  man  who  sells  a  load  of  wheat, 
when  he  gets  the  market  price  for  the  wheat,  does  not  care 
whether  it  is  ground  into  flour  or  turned  into  a  cereal  or 
what  use  it  is  put  to.  He  gets  the  market  price  and  it 
is  all  the  same  to  him. 

Not  so,  to  the  man  who  has  labor  to  sell.  It  may  make 
all  the  difference  in  the  world  to  him  and  to  his  children 
and  to  the  community  at  large  what  is  done  with  his 
labor.  He  has  no  business  to  sell  that  commodity  where 
it  is  to  be  used  under  circumstances  that  will  injure  the 
community,  or  that  will  maim  or  cripple  himself  need- 
lessly, or  that  will  work  an  injury  to  himself  or  his  family 
or  to  the  State. 

The  other  fallacy  is  one  often  held  by  the  working- 
man,  viz.,  that  all  wealth  is  produced  by  physical  labor. 
In  talking  with  working  men  I  have  heard  that  statement 
made  again  and  again.  "All  wealth  is  produced  by  the 
toil  of  the  laborer." 

The  man  who  makes  the  assertion  forgets  that  the  man 
of  capital  furnishes  all  material,  the  tools  and  appliances, 
without  which  his  labor  would  be  worthless. 

Let  us  suppose  a  case  like  this:     Suppose  that  in  your 


56  THE  OLD  GOSPEL 

own  town  or  village  are  a  dozen  men,  carpenters,  good 
workmen,  splendid  skilled  workmen.  They  have  very 
poor  tools  and  a  very  small  amount  of  capital,  a  little 
credit.  They  can  buy  a  little  bit  of  lumber  here  and  there 
and  pay  for  it  and  make  a  certain  amount  of  furniture 
which  they  sell  at  a  fair  profit  and  make  a  living. 
But  there  is  not  much  demand  for  that  furniture  in  the 
town,  and  so  there  is  not  much  of  it  sold,  and  they  make  a 
poor  living.  Then  comes  a  man  with  $25,000  and  puts 
up  a  factory.  He  equips  it  with  the  very  best  of  modern 
machinery.  He  employs  an  expert  advertiser  to  write 
advertisements  for  the  papers  and  magazines.  He  employs 
five  or  six  travelling  salesmen  to  go  out  over  the  country 
and  talk  up  these  goods  and  create  a  market.  The  carpen- 
ters do  not  make  the  market.  The  man  w^ith  the  capital  has 
made  it  possible  for  these  men  to  do  five  times  as  much 
work  in  a  day  or  month  or  a  year  as  they  were  doing 
before,  and  to  do  a  better  grade  of  work,  and  to  create 
a  market  for  their  work.  Would  you  say  that  it  was  the 
workingman  who  created  the  market  for  that  factory? 
Part  of  it.  Would  you  say  that  it  was  the  man  with  the 
capital?  Part  of  it.  Would  you  say  it  was  the  travelling 
salesmen  who  went  out  and  created  the  market?  Part 
of  it.  Or  was  it  the  man  of  genius  who  wrote  the  adver- 
tisements for  these  magazines  and  papers  that  opened  up 
the  way  for  the  travelling  men?  Part  of  it.  They  all 
worked  together,  and  they  must  work  together. 

I  saw  a  little  story  in  one  of  the  papers  lately.  It  may 
be  true  or  it  may  be  just  a  legend  or  a  fable.  I  do  not 
know.  I  do  not  care  whether  it  is  true  or  not  true,  but 
it  illustrates  the  point  I  am  trying  to  make  better  than 


IN  THE  NEW  CENTURY  57 

anything  else  I  can  think  of.  The  fable  or  legend 
as  I  remember  it  was  something  like  this:  Once 
upon  a  time  there  was  an  ambitious  little  city  in 
Southwest  Missouri,  and  in  this  little  city  there  was 
a  young  mechanic  who  worked  in  a  garage.  He  con- 
ceived the  idea  that  he  could  improve  automobile  trucks. 
He  tried  to  interest  some  capitalists  in  that  little  city  in 
Southwest  Missouri  in  his  idea,  but  they  either  did  not 
have  snap  enough  about  them  or  something  was  wrong. 
They  didn't  take  to  his  idea  at  all.  Then  he  went  into 
Texas  and  there  interested  some  people  who  put  up 
$50,000,  and  they  built  a  factory  and  in  a  few  months 
there  were  800  men  employed  in  that  factory.  And  now 
this  same  mechanic  who  was  making  $2  or  $3  a  day  in 
the  garage  in  this  enterprising  little  city  in  Southwest 
Missouri  is  getting  $10,000  a  year  as  manager  of  that 
business  in  Texas. 

Who  created  the  wealth  of  that  business?  The  800 
men  who  are  working  in  the  factory?  Well,  if  it  had  not 
been  for  the  man  with  the  idea,  those  men  might  be  tramp- 
ing over  the  country  hunting  a  job.  And  but  for  the  men 
with  the  $50,000  this  mechanic's  idea  would  not  have 
amounted  to  anything.  Was  it  the  men  with  the  $50,000 
who  created  the  wealth?  Not  altogether,  for  without 
the  eight  hundred  men,  and  without  the  man  of  genius, 
their  money  might  have  been  bringing  them  3%  interest 
in  some  bank  or  in  Government  bonds  perhaps,  but  it 
would  not  have  been  producing  the  dividends  which,  ac- 
cording to  this  story,  are  being  produced  to-day. 

What  is  the  point  I  am  trying  to  make?  Simply  this: 
The  wealth  of  the  world  is  not  produced  alone  by  phy- 


58  THE  OLD  GOSPEL 

sical  toil;  nor  is  it  alone  produced  by  capital,  by  the  men 
who  furnish  materials  and  tools  and  buildings;  nor  is 
it  alone  produced  by  the  men  of  genius.  But  here  are 
the  three  factors:  Genius,  money  and  toil.  They  are 
bound  inseparably  together.  They  are  the  factors  that 
produce  wealth,  and  without  the  co-operation  of  all  three 
of  them  no  wealth  can  be  produced.  You  must  have  the 
three  factors  working  together.  The  man  of  inventive 
genius,  the  man  of  executive  ability,  and  the  man  who 
has  the  ability  to  organize  great  forces  are  as  indispen- 
sable as  the  man  with  the  millions,  and  the  capitalist  is 
as  indispensable  as  the  man  with  the  pick  and  shovel  or 
the  man  with  the  hammer.  The  business  of  a  country 
can  only  be  carried  on  when  these  three  classes  stand 
shoulder  to  shoulder  and  face  to  face  with  each  other  as 
men  who,  in  the  fear  of  God,  recognize  that  they  are 
created  by  one  common  Father,  are  responsible  to  the 
same  God,  and  redeemed  by  the  same  blood  of  Christ,  and 
that  they  must  share  with  each  other  in  the  great  work 
of  producing  the  wealth  of  the  nation. 

All  this  being  true,  society  owes  it  to  the  working- 
man  to  secure  to  him  the  best  possible  conditions  in  which 
he  may  serve  the  public. 

First,  it  must  afford  him  protection  against  accident 
and  disease  as  far  as  possible. 

We  shrink  with  horror  from  the  awful  atrocities  of 
ancient  rites  where  human  lives  were  offered  up  in 
sacrifice  on  Druid  altars.  We  are  appalled  at  the  awful 
slaughter  in  a  war  between  Russia  and  Japan,  or  the 
Civil  War  here  in  our  own  country  a  few  years  ago. 
But  is  it  generally  known  that  the  death-roll  of  industry 


IN  THE  NEW  CENTURY  59 

in  the  United  States  is  greater  than  the  death-roll  of  any 
war  in  history  prior  to  the  present  war  in  Europe  ? 

In  the  modern  industrial  enterprises  of  the  United 
States  525,000  human  lives  are  sacrificed  every  year. 
That  is  200,000  more  than  the  entire  number  slain  on  both 
sides  during  the  war  between  Japan  and  Russia. 

In  the  course  of  four  years,  in  these  times  of  peace, 
there  are  80,000  more  violent  deaths  in  the  United  States 
in  the  ranks  of  industry  than  there  were  lives  lost  on 
both  sides  during  the  four  years  of  the  Civil  War. 

Let  me  analyze  these  figures  a  little  further.  Last 
year  there  were  5,000  violent  deaths  in  the  anthracite  coal- 
mines of  Pennsylvania.  94,200  railway  employes  losi 
their  lives  w^hile  at  the  post  of  duty.  425,000  people  lost 
their  lives  in  the  manufacturing  and  building  industries 
in   this  countr}^  in  a  single  year. 

Some  of  these  lives  were  sacrificed  upon  the  altar  of 
progress.  No  amount  of  precaution  could  have  availed 
to  prevent  some  of  these  deaths,  as  in  the  tunnelling  under 
the  river  in  New  York  a  short  time  ago  w^here  the  work 
was  of  such  a  character  that  it  was  a  foregone  conclusion 
before  they  w^ent  to  work  that  a  large  per  cent,  of  them 
must  lay  down  their  lives,  or  in  the  matter  of  navigating 
the  air.  There  has  been  an  awful  death-rate  among  the 
men  who  sail  these  air-ships.  These  lives  are  laid  upon 
the  altar  of  science  and  progress,  sacrificed  to  the  advance- 
ment of  civilization. 

But  many  of  these  525,000  lives  were  sacrificed  on  the 
altar  of  carelessness — carelessness  either  of  the  individual 
himself,  or  of  a  fellow-servant  or  of  the  general  public 
or  of  the  corporation  for  which  he  was  working. 


6o  THE  OLD  GOSPEL 

But  a  still  larger  per  cent,  of  these  525,000  lives  were 
sacrificed  to  the  demon  of  greed  and  avarice.  Men  are 
required  to  work  in  insanitary  conditions,  in  the  midst  of 
dust  or  steel  filings  or  fine  bits  of  glass  flying  about  in 
places  where  cut  glass  is  made,  or  in  places  where  there 
are  poisonous  gases  or  fumes  of  acids  or  in  a  factory 
where  dangerous  machinery  is  allowed  to  be  exposed  need- 
lessly— sacrifices  to  the  demon  of  greed! 

In  Pittsburgh,  Pennsylvania,  three  lives  are  sacrificed 
in  the  production  of  every  10,000  tons  of  coal;  one  life 
goes  out  for  the  production  of  every  70,000  tons  of  steel 
rails;  and  one  for  every  7,600  tons  of  steel. 

Are  these  sacrificed  upon  the  altar  of  progress?  No. 
Are  they  sacrificed  on  the  altar  of  carelessness?  Some  of 
them.  But  the  majority  of  them  are  laid  down  upon  the 
altar  of  greed,  because  it  is  cheaper  to  kill  men  than  to 
protect  life  by  expensive  devices  or  safety  appliances.  Ex- 
perts capable  of  passing  judgment  on  this  matter  have 
given  It  as  their  unbiased  opinion  that  the  majority  of 
these  lives  have  been  sacrificed  because  it  was  cheaper  to 
kill  men  than  to  safeguard  their  lives  by  the  use  of  ex- 
pensive safety  devices  and  appliances. 

The  permission  of  preventable  accidents  ought  to  be 
counted  a  crime  against  society  as  well  as  against  the 
individual  injured.  It  is  a  crime  against  society  as  well 
as  against  the  individual,  for  it  not  only  injures  the  indi- 
vidual, who  is  killed,  or  maimed  for  life,  but  it  entails  a 
burden  upon  his  family.  It  increases  the  number  of  pau- 
pers and  dependent  persons  who  have  to  be  cared  for  by 
the  public  at  large.  There  is  no  State  in  the  Union  where 
a  man  would  be  permitted  by  law,  for  a  money  considera- 


IN  THE  NEW  CENTURY  6i 

tion,  to  allow  himself  to  be  crippled  for  life.  It  is  against 
the  best  interests  of  society;  and  men  should  not  be 
allowed  to  engage  in  work  under  circumstances  where  they 
might  needlessly  be  crippled  through  the  criminal  care- 
lessness of  the  employer  who  refuses  to  safeguard  the  lives 
of  his  employes  by  proper  appliances  that  may  be  had  for 
money. 

John  Mitchell  never  uttered  a  greater  truth  than  the 
following  statement,  and  it  should  be  proclaimed  from 
one  end  of  this  land  to  the  other: 

"No  country,  however  powerful  or  formidable,  can  be 
counted  truly  great  which  does  not  hold  important  the 
life  and  happiness  of  its  citizens,  even  if  they  be  the  hum- 
blest of  untrained  working-men  or  the  least  of  the  little 
children  in  the  factories." 

Society  ought  to  share  the  burden  and  the  responsibility 
of  the  loss  of  life  or  limb  in  the  industrial  service  of  the 
country.  It  is  not  fair  that  the  workers  and  their  families 
should  bear  all  of  the  burden  of  the  loss  resulting  from 
accident  in  the  ranks  of  industry.  Indeed  they  are  the 
last  who  should  be  expected  to  bear  the  burden.  Usually 
they  work  for  merely  a  living  wage,  and  when  accident 
comes,  if  it  be  the  bread-winner,  it  means  that  all  of  the 
children  must  be  taken  from  school  to  earn  bread,  or  that 
the  family  become  objects  of  charity. 

It  would  not  always  be  right  that  the  men  in  whose 
employ  a  worker  loses  his  life  or  is  maimed  for  life  should 
bear  the  whole  burden  of  responsibility.  If  it  can  be 
shown  that  the  accident  resulted  from  any  carelessness  on 
the  employer's  part,  or  from  a  failure  to  provide  for  the 
safety  of  the  men  in  his  employ,  then  he  should  be  held 


62  THE  OLD  GOSPEL 

responsible.  I  am  not  lawyer  enough  to  pass  judgment 
upon  the  law  in  regard  to  the  employer's  liability  for  the 
carelessness  of  a  fellow-servant.  I  know  that  if  employ- 
ers had  always  to  pay  an  indemnity  for  the  loss  of  life  or 
limb,  this  law  would  be  prohibitive  in  some  lines  of  busi- 
ness, for  the  indemnity  would  be  so  great  that  it  would 
put  the  man  or  the  corporation  out  of  business. 

But  is  there  not  another  remedy?  Who  gets  the  benefit 
of  the  toil  of  these  men  who  work  in  the  factories  and 
in  the  mills?  The  public.  In  the  old  days  of  individual 
initiative,  when  a  man  had  a  little  shop  and  employed  three 
or  four  or  half  a  dozen  men,  there  was  not  much  danger 
of  accident  or  loss  of  life.  But  in  the  great  mills  and 
factories  where  five  to  ten  thousand  are  employed,  ac- 
cidents are  of  common  occurrence.  What  do  these  great 
organizations  mean  to  the  public?  They  mean  cheaper 
goods  of  every  kind  and  the  public  is  the  beneficiary.  Is 
it  right  then  that  the  corporation  employing  the  men  or 
that  the  men  themselves  should  bear  the  burden  of  these 
accidents? 

The  nation  pensions  its  maimed  and  crippled  soldiers 
and  their  widows  and  orphans  because  of  service  rendered 
in  time  of  war.  Are  times  of  war  more  important  than 
times  of  peace?  Why,  then,  should  not  a  nation  provide 
pensions  for  those  who  have  been  crippled  and  maimed 
in  the  ranks  of  industry? 

When  men  have  bared  their  breast  to  the  cannon  and 
faced  powder  and  shot  and  shell,  the  Government  rec- 
ognizes that  they  have  done  a  heroic  thing,  and  it  pro- 
vides in  pensions  something  for  them  when  they  have  been 
crippled  and  for  their  widows  and  orphans. 


IN   THE   NEW  CENTURY  63 

The  men  who  have  bared  their  breasts  to  the  cannon 
and  gone  out  to  face  powder  and  shot  and  bayonets  are 
not  braver  men  nor  more  heroic  than  the  men  who  go 
down  into  the  mines  and  up  on  the  high  buildings,  who 
work  on  the  sky-scrapers  in  the  great  cities.  These  are 
the  true  heroes.  These  are  the  men  who  are  showing 
courage  day  by  day;  and  the  Government  should  make 
provision  for  them,  and  the  people  should  not  begrudge 
the  slight  addition  it  would  make  to  the  taxes,  to  provide 
the  pensions. 

Society  owes  it  to  the  workers  in  all  branches  of  in- 
dustry to  safeguard  the  laws  relating  to  contracts  defining 
the  hours  of  work,  the  place  of  payment  of  wages,  and  the 
frequency  of  payment  of  wages. 

In  small  establishments  it  does  not  make  much  differ- 
ence whether  the  workers  are  paid  once  a  week  or  once  a 
month,  either  to  the  emploj^e  or  the  employer;  but  in  the 
great  establishment  employing  from  a  thousand  to  seven 
thousand  men,  where  the  pay-roll  is  from  $100,000  to 
$300,000  per  month,  it  may  make  a  w^orld  of  difference 
to  the  toilers  and  it  certainly  makes  a  great  diflFerence  to 
the  corporation  employing  them.  The  interest  of  $250,000 
or  $300,000  for  a  month  is  quite  an  item,  and  if  they  can 
withold  payment  from  month  to  month  they  make  quite 
a  little  on  the  interest, 

I  have  heard  of  such  an  instance  as  this,  where  men 
are  employed  at  simply  a  living  wage  and  paid  once  a 
month,  and  as  long  as  they  keep  their  health  and  ever}^- 
thing  goes  all  right,  they  get  along;  but  if  sickness  comes 
and  they  have  a  physician's  and  a  nurse-bill  to  pay  they 
begin   to  run   behind;  and   then   the  company  offers   to 


64  THE  OLD  GOSPEL 

pay  them  each  week,  provided  they  will  take  from  6o% 
to  75%  of  the  wages  contracted  for.  The  law  ought  not 
to  permit  such  a  condition  to  exist.  In  a  great  corpora- 
tion where  large  numbers  of  people  are  employed  they 
should  be  paid  weekly.  "The  laborer  is  worthy  of  his 
reward,"  and  is  worthy  of  his  reward  when  the  money 
is  earned. 

But  the  place  of  payment  is  quite  as  important  to  the 
working-man  and  his  family  as  anything  else.  It  ought  to 
be  against  the  law  to  pay  men  in  places  where  there  is  a 
temptation  to  squander  the  money. 

There  is  a  little  city  of  i8,ooo  population  in  Illinois 
where  there  are  several  large  factories  employing  about  two 
thousand  men.  The  men  are  paid  twice  a  month.  Salaries 
or  wages  range  from  $1.75  a  day  to  $100  a  week  for 
some  of  the  skilled  workmen.  These  men  are  paid  at 
five  o'clock  on  Saturday  night  at  the  office  of  the  com- 
pany, or  at  their  two  offices,  and  facing  those  two  offices 
are  six  saloons.  It  is  five  o'clock  in  the  evening  when 
the  men  are  paid,  and  the  banks  are  closed.  But  the 
saloons  are  open  with  money  on  hand  to  cash  the  checks. 
And  many  of  the  men,  rather  than  wait  till  Monday  for 
the  banks  to  open,  when  they  will  be  busy  again  at  their 
work,  go  into  these  saloons  and  cash  their  checks. 

While  the  pay-roll  of  the  Company  in  that  towoi  is 
$80,000  a  month,  from  25%  to  30%  goes  back  into  the  till 
of  the  Company  over  the  saloon  bar.  The  men  get  their 
drinks  on  credit,  and  of  course  when  they  go  in  there 
to  cash  their  checks  it  means  that  they  will  spend  more 
money.  We  say  the  pay-roll  of  $80,000  a  month  is  a  big 
thing,  but  really  the  pay-roll  is  not  over  $60,000  for 


IN  THE  NEW  CENTURY  65 

$20,000  goes  back  into  the  till  of  the  saloon-keeper,  into 
the  coffers  of  the  men  who  employ  the  laborers.  This 
ought  to  be  against  the  law. 

Experience  and  observation  have  proven  that  it  cannot 
be  safely  left  to  the  general  public  to  see  to  it  that  the 
laborer  always  gets  a  just  reward  for  his  labor  or  fair 
treatment  from  the  corporation  employing  him.  Organiza- 
tion is  necessary  on  the  part  of  the  workers  to  secure  and 
protect  the  rights  of  the  industrial  class. 

I  believe  there  is  Scriptural  ground  for  this  statement. 
I  read  in  Scripture:  "Two  are  better  than  one;  because 
they  have  a  good  reward  for  their  labor.  For  if  they  fall, 
the  one  will  lift  up  his  fellow;  but  woe  to  him  that  is 
alone  when  he  falleth,  and  hath  not  another  to  lift  him 
up." — Eccles.  4:9,  10. 

In  this  day  of  great  aggregations  of  capital,  or  com- 
binations that  we  call  trusts,  what  chance  does  the  indi- 
vidual worker  have  in  settling  any  kind  of  a  difficulty? 
He  may  not  like  the  conditions  under  which  he  has  to 
work  at  his  trade.  What  does  the  corporation  care?  It 
can  get  plenty  of  other  men. 

So  it  is  necessary  for  the  working-man  to  join  hands 
with  his  fellow- workers.  It  is  necessary  that  those  who 
belong  to  the  same  trades  or  occupations  should  be  organ- 
ized and  stand  together  in  the  defence  of  their  rights. 

Let  us  consider  briefly  some  of  the  benefits  that  have 
been  secured  to  the  working  class  by  means  of  organized 
labor.  One  of  them  is  shorter  hours  of  service.  John 
Mitchell  has  this  to  say  in — "Organized  Labor:" 

"The  success  of  organized  labor  in  increasing  the  wages 
of  working-men  has  been  brilliant  and  signal,  but  it  has 


66  THE  OLD  GOSPEL 

not  been  more  important  than  the  success  in  reducing  the 
hours  of  labor.  An  increase  in  the  wages  means  moic 
of  the  comforts  and  luxuries  of  life;  a  decrease  in  the 
hours,  the  opportunity  to  enjoy  these  comforts  and  lux- 
uries. The  shortening  of  the  working  day  further  stands 
for  the  freedom  from  toil  at  the  time  when  it  becomes 
most  exacting,  nerve-wearing  and  dangerous;  still  further 
it  stands  for  leisure,  recreation,  education  and  family 
life.  During  the  nineteenth  century  American  trade 
unions  diminished  the  length  of  the  working  day  from 
twelve  hours,  and  in  some  cases  fourteen,  to  ten,  nine  and 
finally  eight  hours." 

Again,  organized  labor  has  reduced  the  amount  of  child- 
labor  and  given  better  sanitary  conditions  in  the  mills  and 
factories.  According  to  the  report  of  the  United  States 
Census,  we  have  these  figures: 

In  1880  6.55%  of  Industrial  workers  were  children 
under  fourteen  years  of  age.  In  1890  2.68%  were  chil- 
dren under  the  age  of  fourteen  years.  In  the  State  of 
Connecticut  the  proportion  has  been  reduced  from  7.43% 
to  2.10%;  in  Massachusetts  from  4.92%  to  1.84%;  and  in 
Illinois  the  proportion  of  children  has  been  reduced  from 
6.17%  to  1.83%.  If  union  effort  had  done  nothing  else 
than  reduce  the  child-labor,  as  it  has  In  Illinois,  and 
bring  about  better  sanitary  conditions  in  the  mills  and 
factories,  it  would  be  worth  while. 

Another  object  that  ought  to  be  kept  before  the  mind 
of  working-men  in  their  unions,  and  I  think  is  being  kept 
before  the  mind  in  many  unions,  is  the  effort  of  the  union 
to  produce  greater  skill  and  effectiveness  on  the  part  of 
the  worker. 


IN  THE  NEW  CENTURY  67 

There  was  a  time  when  the  union  seemed  to  go  on 
the  theory  that  "A  man  was  a  man  for  a'  that."  Whether 
he  could  do  the  work  or  not,  they  sought  to  bring  up 
to  a  common  level  and  demand  the  same  wage  for  every 
man.  But  through  the  leadership  of  John  Mitchell  many 
unions  have  come  to  see  the  fallacy  of  that  idea,  and  that 
skill  and  effectiveness  and  ability  to  do  things  ought  to 
count,  ought  to  stand  for  something.  The  unions  ought 
to  inculcate  that  idea,  and  many  of  them  are  endeavoring 
to  make  skill  and  effectiveness  stand  for  a  better  wage 
and  a  better  position. 

There  are  three  facts  that  should  be  clearly  under- 
stood and  constantly  kept  in  mind,  and  with  this  I  close. 

First:  That  changes  and  reforms  that  help  the  cause 
of  labor  should  be  sought  by  evolution  rather  than  by 
revolution. 

This  is  the  day  of  books  and  reading.  Five  hundred 
years  ago  the  average  toiler  could  not  read  or  write. 
To-day  the  working-man  goes  back  and  forth  on  the 
trolley  car  to  his  work  reading  his  daily  paper  and  dis- 
cussing the  political  issues  and  the  labor  question  and 
other  great  questions  with  as  much  statesmanship  as  the 
men  we  send  to  Congress. 

Reforms  should  be  sought  by  enlightenment,  by  the  use 
of  the  printed  page,  by  the  lecture  platform,  by  the  pulpit, 
and  by  every  means  that  will  help  to  enlighten  and  educate 
and  train  men. 

As  I  said  in  the  beginning,  there  are  three  factors  that 
make  for  progress,  the  toiler,  the  organizer  and  the  man 
with  money.  These  three  must  understand  each  other,  and 
they  must  work  in  harmony,  or  they  cripple  each  other  and 


68  THE  OLD  GOSPEL 

cripple  the  nation  in  its  pursuit  of  wealth  and  happiness,* 
hence  every  improvement  should  be  by  evolution  rather 
than  by  revolution.  Whenever  men,  whether  they  be 
working-men  or  capitalists,  resort  to  brute  force,  to  dyna- 
mite, to  acts  of  violence  of  which  the  general  public  dis- 
approves, they  injure  the  cause,  whether  it  be  the  cause 
of  capital  or  the  cause  of  labor. 

Second :  Anything  that  fosters  a  class  spirit  and  arrays 
one  class  against  another,  anything  that  tends  to  array 
<-he  workers  against  the  capitalists,  or  the  organizer,  or 
the  man  of  genius  who  has  invented  things ;  anything  that 
cripples  the  wealth  of  the  nation,  is  a  mistake  and  works 
injur}'  to  the  cause  of  industry. 

Anything  that  fosters  a  class  spirit  is  wrong  anywhere, 
whether  in  the  church  or  in  politics,  or  in  labor  circles 
or  anywhere  else. 

Third:  Let  me  assure  you  that  the  church  is  not  the 
foe  but  the  friend  of  the  working-man. 

There  are  many  working-men  who  believe  just  the 
opposite.  I  suppose  I  met  one  of  these  one  evenmg 
in  handing  out  an  invitation  card  to  attend  church,  for 
with  a  bitter  oath,  he  said  he  didn't  go  to  such  places. 
Well,  I  knew  by  the  language  he  used,  that  he  didn't 
go  to  church.  But  that  man  perhaps  is  laboring  under  the 
delusion  that  the  church  is  the  foe  of  the  working-man. 

I  want  to  remind  you,  fellow  workers,  for  I  work  as 
many  hours  as  any  man,  that  the  first  great  defender  of 
the  labor  cause  proclaimed  his  reforms  from  the  carpen- 
ter's bench. 

Jesus  Christ  was  the  first  labor  reformer  and  he  pro- 
claimed his  message  from  the  carpenter's  bench  in  Naz- 


IN  THE  NEW  CENTURY  69 

areth. 

Although  we  live  in  strenuous  times,  in  the  midst  of 
gigantic  enterprises  and  mighty  problems,  we  ought  to 
be  thankful  that  we  have  these  problems  to  face.  We 
ought  to  be  thankful  that  we  live  in  the  twentieth  century 
when  there  arc  problems  worthy  the  courage  of  a  man. 

Let  us  not  be  discouraged  because  there  seem  sometimes 
insurmountable  difficulties. 

"Be  strong. 
We  are  not  here  to  play,  to  dream,  to  drift; 
We  have  hard  work  to  do  and  loads  to  lift. 
Shun  not  the  struggle,  face  it;  'tis  God's  gift; 

Be  strong,  be  strong. 
Say  not  the  days  are  evil,  Who's  to  blame? 
And  fold  the  hands  in  acquiescence, — O,  shame! 
Stand  up,  speak  out,  and  bravely  in  God's  name 

Be  strong. 
It  matters  not  how  deep  entrenched  the  wrong, 
How  hard  the  battle  goes,  the  day  how  long; 
Faint  not,  fight  on,  to-morrow  comes  the  song." 


THE  PRACTICAL  VALUE  OF  CHRISTIANITY 
AS  A  NATIONAL  ASSET 


''Offer  unto  God  Thanksgiving,  and  pay  thy  vows  unto 
the  Most  High/' — Psahn  50:14. 

''Enter  into  His  gates  with  thanksgiving,  and  into  His 
courts  with  praise;  be  thankful  unto  Him  and  bless  His 
name." — Psalm    100:4. 


THE  PRACTICAL  VALUE  OF  CHRISTIANITY 
AS  A  NATIONAL  ASSET 

I  HAVE  read  somewhere  in  English  history  of  an 
old  castle  in  which  there  was  said  to  be  a  golden 
table,  around  which  twelve  royal  knights,  clad  in 
golden  armor,  were  accustomed  to  sit  and  quaff 
delicious  wine  from  golden  goblets.  This,  no  doubt,  is 
the  creation  of  fancy  or  the  product  of  superstitious  imag- 
ination, but  it  suggests  to  my  mind  that  there  is  a  stately 
castle  the  foundation  of  which  was  laid  by  the  Pilgrim 
Fathers  on  the  rock-bound  shores  of  New  England.  In 
architectural  grandeur  it  far  surpasses  any  of  the  famous 
castles  of  the  old  world.  Its  floor  is  a  rich  mosaic  of 
gold  and  silver,  iron,  copper,  tin,  lead,  zinc,  and  coal.  It 
has  an  area  of  more  than  three  million  six  hundred  thou- 
sand square  miles  of  surface,  and  is  capable  of  accommo- 
dating more  than  five  hundred  millions  of  people.  In  each 
of  its  forty-eight  rooms,  there  is  spread  on  the  last  Thurs- 
day in  November,  by  the  authority  of  our  honored  Chief 
Magistrate,  a  golden  table  of  thanksgiving;  around  this 
table  the  knights  and  ladies  of  the  twentieth  century,  clad 
in  the  white  robes  of  civil  and  religious  liberty  are  in- 
vited to  come  and  partake  of  the  sweet  nectar  of  w^orship 
from  the  golden  goblet  of  God's  Providence.  From  the 
day  on  which  the  corner  stone  of  our  national  castle  was 
laid,  this  table  has  been  spread  as  an  annual  feast  of 
thanksgiving  in  some  of  the  States,  and  for  fully  half  a 
century  it  has  been  a  national  custom.     It  is  distinctly  an 

73 


74  THE  OLD  GOSPEL 

American  custom  and  as  such  should  be  fondly  cherished 
b}'  every  true  American. 

It  is  not  with  the  origin  and  history  of  thanksgiving  day 
that  I  wish  to  interest  you  in  this  chapter.  It  is  not  of 
our  growth  and  prosperity  as  a  nation  that  I  wish  to  speak, 
nor  do  I  mean  to  recall  the  mercies  of  God  and  the  in- 
numerable blessings  He  has  bestowed  upon  us  during  the 
past  year,  although  each  of  these  subjects  is  of  great  inter- 
est to  us  all. 

The  theme  to  which  I  now  invite  your  attention  is, 
"The  Practical  Value  of  Thanksgiving  Day  to  the  Na- 
tion." 

VVe  are  living  in  an  intensely  busy  and  practical  age. 
Men  are  not  so  much  concerned  with  the  past  as  with  the 
present  and  the  future.  Our  age  does  not  ask  of  men  who 
have  been  their  ancestors  and  what  their  family  history; 
but  it  puts  the  blunt  question.  What  can  you  do?  What 
are  you  good  for  now?  So  also  of  institutions,  our  age 
asks.  What  is  their  practical  value?  What  can  they  do 
for  humanity?  These  questions  it  asks  of  higher  educa- 
tion, of  modern  inventions,  in  fact  of  every  thing;  hence 
the  propriety  of  the  theme,  What  is  the  value  of  our  Na- 
tional Thanksgiving  Day? 

First:  It  keeps  before  the  public  mind  the  truth  that 
God  reigns  among  the  kingdoms  of  men. 

Second  :     It  strengthens  family  ties. 

Third :  It  binds  the  Nation  closer  in  its  allegiance  to 
the  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  the  true  king  of  Nations. 

First;  It  keeps  before  the  public  mind  the  truth  that 
God  reigns,  and  just  so  long  as  this  truth  is  kept  clearly 
before  the  minds  of  the  rising  generations  are  we  secure; 


IN   THE  NEW  CENTURY  75 

but  whenever  we  lose  sight  of  this  fact  our  national  glory 
will  melt  away  like  the  sparkling  frost  on  an  autumn 
morning  and  our  national  greatness  will  crumble  into  dust. 
Aside  from  all  considerations  of  religion,  the  belief  in  a 
personal,  sovereign  God  is  of  inestimable  valu?  to  every 
nation.  It  is  a  better  protection  to  liberty  than  law  and 
police  regulations.  It  is  a  greater  safeguard  than  walled 
cities  and  standing  armies.  "Rob  men  of  their  belief  in 
a  personal  God,  and  you  tear  the  throbbing  heart  out  of  a 
warm  intelligent  civilization  and  leave  it  a  lifeless  and 
worthless  corpse."  Take  away  the  belief  in  a  Divine 
Ruler,  and  the  oath  will  no  longer  be  sacred,  the  marriage 
ring  will  be  forever  broken,  the  sanctity  of  the  home  vio- 
lated and  the  reign  of  selfishness  will  be  established. 
Under  such  conditions  man  wnll  have  no  rights  worthy  of 
respect;  law  will  become  a  dead  letter;  property  a  bone 
of  contention,  and  religion  a  farce. 

Blot  out  the  name  of  God  from  our  language  and  the 
"Reign  of  Terror"  would  be  the  result  here  in  America 
as  it  was  in  France.  Am  I  told  that  culture  and  mutual 
sympathy  would  be  sufficient  to  protect  society  from  the 
reign  of  Judge  Lynch  and  mob  law?  As  well  might 
you  tell  me  that  you  can  remove  the  sun  from  the  sky  and 
illuminate  the  spheres  in  their  wanderings  through  space 
by  the  light  of  a  tallow  candle.  No,  no,  God,  and  God 
alone  is  the  light  of  the  world.  Wherever  His  name  has 
been  entirely  forgotten  you  will  find  the  very  lowest 
condition  of  savage  life.  Where  God's  name  is  not  known 
by  men,  your  life  is  only  safe  when  you  are  well  armed. 
Brute  force  is  the  court  of  last  resort  where  there  is  no 
God.     I  do  not  ask  you  to  agree  with  me  without  first 


76  THE  OLD  GOSPEL 

weighing  the  evidence  for  what  I  say.  When  I  tell  you 
that  to  rob  men  of  their  belief  in  God  is  to  establish  the 
reign  of  anarchy,  I  call  to  witness  the  testimony  of  history. 
Here  it  is  in  the  language  of  one  who  has  made  the  history 
of  infidelity  a  lifelong  study.  Dr.  Scott  F.  Hershey  whose 
book  on  the  "Failure  of  Infidelity,"  is  worthy  of  careful 
perusal  says,  in  speaking  of  the  convention  of  French  in- 
fidels who  met  and  declared  that  they  had  abolished  God 
and  the  Sabbath,  "The  assembly  convened  and  revoked 
all  law  and  order,  and  vested  authority  in  the  irresponsible 
classes.  Mobs,  riots,  and  communistic  parties  contested 
everything  and  went  into  the  work  of  making  laws  with- 
out any  idea  of  what  the  people  needed.  Paris  was  the 
victim  of  the  legislation  of  mobism.  To  such  excesses 
and  blunders  the  Revolution  is  indebted  for  its  existence. 
Words  of  awful  meaning  gather  in  that  hour  of  unsettled 
society  a  dreadful  significance.  The  prison  rooms  became 
frescoed  with  blood,  and  the  prison  walls  spattered  with 
brains.  The  pavements  were  reddened  with  blood  and  the 
gutters  filled  with  the  torn  shreds  of  human  flesh.  The 
morning  breeze  and  evening  wind  bore  alike  across  the 
vine-clad  hills  of  France  the  cries  of  suffering  and  the 
heart  chilling  shrieks  of  terror.  Society  was  for  the  first 
time  utterly  disorganized.  Property  was  confiscated.  In 
the  scales  of  that  hour  passion  weighed  heavier  than  life 
and  hatred  became  a  substitute  for  good  will.  Fear  drove 
away  the  timid  and  fortitude  brought  the  brave  to  execu- 
tion. Treachery,  licentiousness,  and  libertinism  har- 
nessed themselves  to  the  iron-axled  car  of  anarchy  and 
drove  ruin  up  and  down  the  streets  of  Paris  until  thou- 
sands lost  their  lives  in  the  prison,  at  the  block,  and  on  the 


IN  THE  NEW  CENTURY  77 

guillotine.  An  injured  humanity  with  angered  conscience 
but  discriminating  judgment  will  ever  point  to  the  infidels 
of  France  and  say  'Your  work'  and  from  that  most  pain- 
ful break  in  human  progress  whose  darkness  was  only 
broken  by  the  glare  of  blood  and  the  flash  of  the  guillo- 
tine knife,  the  infidels  of  France  will  have  to  answer 
'Our  work.'  "  This  is  a  dark  picture  but  it 
is  history.  Now  I  ask  you,  do  you  want  to  see  that  history 
repeated  on  American  soil?  Then  relegate  to  the  old 
fogyism  of  the  past  your  National  Thanksgiving  festival. 
Teach  your  children  that  all  expressions  of  gratitude  to 
God  for  the  blessings  of  life  are  silly  and  only  evince  a 
weak  mind.  Teach  your  children  that  the  Bible  is  only 
mythology,  that  religion  is  only  superstition  and  that 
belief  in  God  is  fanaticism.  But  if  you  would  continue 
to  enjoy  the  blessings  of  peace  and  good  government  and 
the  consolations  of  religion,  adopt  as  the  motto  of  your 
private  life  and  the  watchword  of  your  national  life  the 
language  of  the  Psalmist,  "Offer  unto  God  Thanksgiving 
and  pay  thy  vows  unto  the  Most  High." 

Do  you  ask  for  more  evidence  on  this  point?  Again  I 
take  up  the  volume  of  ancient  history  and  looking  back 
through  it  into  the  dim  and  shadow}^  past  I  behold  the 
graveyard  of  nations  now  buried  in  ruins;  I  ask  the  cause 
of  their  desolation  and  ruin,  and  the  answer  comes  back 
as  an  echo  from  the  hills  of  divine  Revelation :  "The 
nation  and  the  kingdom  that  will  not  serve  God  shall 
perish.  The  wicked  shall  be  turned  into  hell  and  all  the 
nations  that  forget  God." 

Looking  back  over  the  departed  greatness  of  Egypt, 
JBabylon,  Nineveh,  and  Tyre,  we  behold  one  inscription 


78  THE  OLD  GOSPEL 

written  over  them  all,  and  this  is  the  writing,  "God  hath' 
numbered  thy  kingdom  and  finished  it."  These  nations 
forgot  God,  they  ignored  His  law  and  trusted  to  material 
prosperity  for  their  perpetuity  and  glory.  Would  you 
bury  in  a  like  oblivion  this  fair  land  of  ours,  then  follow 
their  example — Give  up  your  Sabbath,  your  Thanksgiving 
and  all  those  special  days  that  call  us  to  the  worship  of 
God ;  but  if  you  would  not  share  their  fate  I  ask  you  to 
turn  to  God's  own  Book  and  learn  a  lesson  in  government 
from  that  king  whose  name  will  shine  on  history's  scroll 
as  long  as  time  shall  last.  Turn  to  king  David,  and  learn 
upon  what  the  stability  of  government  depends.  "Offer 
unto  God  thanksgiving  and  pay  thy  vows  unto  the  Most 
High"  was  his  watchword.  Let  us  pray  to  the  God 
whom  we  adore  that  He  will  help  us  to  follow  the 
example  of  king  David  in  keeping  before  the  mind  of  the 
rising  generation  the  truth  that  God  reigns. 

Second:  Our  annual  thanksgiving  festival  strengthens 
family  ties.  It  is  a  day  of  grateful  acknowledgment  of 
our  many  mercies  and  blessings,  both  temporal  and  spirit- 
ual, but  it  is  also  a  day  of  family  reunions. 

As  I  write  these  words  my  thoughts  take  wings  and  fly 
back  to  the  hills  of  Pennsylvania;  in  fancy  I  sit  once  more 
with  the  family  circle  at  the  old  homestead.  I  recall  the 
faces  of  old  friends  and  acquaintances  that  were  almost 
forgotten.  I  think  of  the  playmates  of  my  childhood, 
many  of  whom  are  now  sleeping  beneath  the  green  sod ; 
I  live  over  again  the  years  of  childhood  and  long  for  the 
simplicity  and  innocence  of  those  happy  years  before  my 
heart  had  tasted  the  bitterness  of  sin.     In  the  midst  of 


IN   THE  NEW  CENTURY  79 

those  scenes  of  bygone  years  my  heart  is  touched  and  I  am 
made  better.  Father  and  mother,  brothers  and  sisters, 
and  the  old  home  are  all  dearer  to  me  than  they  were 
before.  I  behold  on  the  page  of  memory  another  spot 
more  sacred  even  than  the  old  home.  I  stand  once  more 
beside  two  little  graves  upon  which  the  autumn  leaves  have 
fallen  in  the  silent  church  yard,  and  my  thoughts  soar 
away  to  a  brighter  home  where  angel  hands  are  beckoning 
me,  and  I  hear  sweet  voices  calling  to  me  from  the  distant 
shore  assuring  me  that  there  is  a  home  in  heaven  for  those 
who  love  their  Redeemer. 

"Home  of  my  childhood  thou  shalt  ever  be  dear 
To  the  heart  that  so  fondly  revisits  thee  now. 
Though  thy  beauty  be  gone  thy  leaf  in  the  sear, 
The  wreathes  of  the  past  still  cling  to  thy  brow. 
Spirit  of  mine,  why  linger  ye  here 
Why  cling  to  these  hopes  so  futile  and  vain? 
Go,  seek  ye  a  home  in  that  radient  sphere 
Which  through  change  and  time  thou  shalt  ever  retain." 

I  dwell  upon  these  scenes  of  the  past  because  all  over 
this  broad  land  there  are  those  whose  lives  will  be  made 
happier  and  better  on  Thanksgiving  day  by  the  memory 
of  home  and  friends  and  former  thanksgiving  days.  But 
there  is  another  class  who  may  be  influenced  by  the  thanks- 
giving occasion ;  I  have  in  mind  those  who  have  no  homes. 
There  are  many  who  have  never  known  the  joys  of  home. 
There  are  many  who  were  turned  out  in  helpless  and 
tender  childhood  upon  a  cold,  unfeeling,  and  heartless 
world.     The   return   of   this   glad   day   should   serve   to 


8o  THE  OLD  GOSPEL 

remind  Christian  people  at  least,  that  they  owe  a  duty  to 
these  unfortunate  ones  of  humanity.  They  are  our  broth- 
ers and  our  sisters,  for,  "God  hath  made  of  one  blood  all 
the  nations  of  men  to  dwell  upon  all  the  face  of  the  earth." 
Then  again,  there  are  those  who  have  gone  out  from 
homes  of  plenty  and  comfort  and  love  to  plunge  deep  into 
the  boiling  sea  of  this  world's  wickedness,  and  drink  to 
the  dregs  the  cup  of  this  world's  woe.  I  have  read  some- 
where of  a  young  man  who  had  been  reared  in  a  Christian 
home  with  the  best  of  moral  surroundings,  but  who  went 
out  into  the  great  world  to  seek  his  fortune  and  who 
gradually  came  to  look  upon  the  teachings  of  the  family 
altar  as  not  worth  while,  and  who  in  time  drifted  far 
away  from  the  religion  of  his  father  and  mother.  One 
night  he  wandered  through  the  streets  of  Paris  intoxi- 
cated. He  came  finally  to  a  beautifully  lighted  house 
where  he  could  see  through  the  window  a  woman,  and 
could  hear  her  singing  in  the  English  tongue,  "Home 
Sweet  Home."  He  listened  to  the  notes  as  they  rose  and 
fell  upon  the  night  air  and  at  last  when  the  song  was 
over  he  turned  to  go  home.  But  no,  he  had  no  home. 
The  waves  of  the  Atlantic  rolled  between  him  and  the 
home  of  his  childhood.  The  memory  of  that  home  ot 
other  days  came  back  to  him  and  he  knelt  there  in  the 
street  and  gave  his  heart  to  God  and  became  a  new  man 
in  Christ  Jesus.  Let  us  hope  and  pray  that  many  of 
these  erring  sons  and  misguided  daughters  will  on  next 
Thanksgiving  day  he  brought  to  Christ  and  to  a  better  life 
through  the  memory  of  home  and  past  Thanksgiving  days. 
In  many  homes  families  that  have  been  separated  for  months 
and  even  for  years  will  be  reunited  on  Thanksgiving  day; 


IN  THE   NEW  CENTURY  8i 

their  love  for  each  other  will  be  rekindled  as  they  gather 
once  more  around  the  family  table  to  partake  of  God's 
bounty.  Family  ties  will  be  strengthened  as  they  bow 
once  more  around  the  family  altar  for  prayer.  Some  who 
met  in  these  home  circles  last  year  will  not  be  there  this 
year,  for  they  have  crossed  the  dark  river  of  death  and 
are  now  on  the  other  shore;  but  the  memory  of  the  sainted 
dead  calls  us  on  Thanksgiving  day  to  meet  them  in  that 
home  above. 

As  we  gather  our  families  and  friends  around  the  well- 
fiUed  table  on  this  most  hallowed  day  of  all  the  3'ear, 
let  us  remember  that  this  day  may  be  the  last  Thanksgiving 
day  that  we  will  ever  spend  together  on  earth.  It  may 
be  that  ere  the  wheel  of  time  has  brought  another  Thanks- 
giving day  around  we  too  may  be  among  the  number  who 
sleep  beneath  the  dust  of  the  valley  of  death.  These 
homes  of  ours  are  not  permanent.  Link,  by  link  the  family 
chain  is  broken  off.  One  by  one  we  are  claimed  by  the 
grim  messenger,  Death.  One  by  one  we  are  called  to  cross 
the  dark  river  alone.  Let  us  then  learn  to  love  each  other 
better.  Let  us  learn  to  strengthen  the  ties  of  true  friend- 
ship here  and  prepare  for  that  better  friendship  over 
there.  It  should  be  borne  in  mind  in  this  connection  that 
whatever  influences  tend  to  ennoble  the  home  life  should 
be  valued  by  us  as  priceless  jew^els.  Whatever  customs 
make  the  home  better  are  of  great  practical  value  to  the 
nation.  The  home  is  the  center  of  those  influences  that 
shall  be  felt  in  the  future  histor>^  of  our  country.  The 
home  is  the  cradle  of  patriotism  and  the  corner  stone  of 
the  state.  It  is  in  the  home  that  character  is  formed  and 
if  the  stability  of  the  state  depends  upon  the  good  char- 


82  THE  OLD  GOSPEL 

acter  of  its  citizens,  how  important  does  it  become  that 
these  home  centers  where  character  is  developed  should 
be  good.  We  do  not  expect  to  find  grapes  on  thorns  or  to 
drink  pure  water  from  an  impure  fountain.  No  more  can 
we  expect  to  see  pure  and  honest  manhood  and  womanhood 
nourished  in  impure  homes.  Where  parents  are  disloyal 
to  God  and  hostile  to  all  righteous  authority,  children 
aie  very  likely  to  follow  in  their  footsteps.  In  the  name 
of  home  and  country  I  plead  for  a  better  and  a  more 
religious  observance   of  Thanksgiving  Day. 

Third:  The  setting  apart  of  one  day  in  the  year  to 
be  religiously  observed  by  all  the  people  tends  to  quicken 
the  spiritual  pulse  of  the  nation  and  bind  us  closer  in  our 
allegiance  to  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  the  true  King  of 
Nations. 

When  our  Saviour  was  on  trial  before  the  Roman 
tribunal,  Pilate  asked  the  Jews  what  he  should  do  with 
Jesus  their  king,  and  they  answered,  "Away  with  him, 
we  have  no  king  but  Caesar."  From  that  day  Israel's 
glory  faded  away.  As  long  as  the  Jewish  nation  pointed 
men  to  the  coming  Christ  it  flourished.  God's  hand 
guided  the  ship  of  empire  and  gave  it  prosperity,  but  when 
Israel  rejected  Christ  it  perished  as  a  nation.  So  will  it 
be  with  us  or  with  any  nation  if  we  refuse  to  own  Him 
as  the  rightful  King.  Whenever  we  as  a  people  cease  to 
observe  our  national  Thanksgiving  or  permit  it  to  degen- 
erate into  a  day  of  pleasure  seeking  and  carousal,  whenever 
we  turn  the  Sabbath  into  a  mere  worldly  holiday,  when- 
ever we  give  up  those  institutions  that  do  honor  to  Him, 
by  so  doing  we  say  like  the  Jews  of  old,  we  have  no  king 
but  Mammon.    God  the  Father  has  given  the  providential 


IN  THE  NEW  CENTURY  83 

government  of  the  world  into  His  hands  and  by  Him 
the  nations  of  the  earth  will  be  judged.  So  long  as  we 
are  true  and  loyal  to  Christ  and  His  cross  He  will  be 
true  to  us.  To  offend  Him  is  to  offend  our  King.  U 
we  with  our  cold  and  unsympathetic  hearts,  feel  the  sting 
of  pain  when  friends  are  ungrateful  to  us,  what  must  be 
the  feeling  of  our  Saviour  when  men  turn  traitors  to  his 
cause ?  Shakespeare  represents  King  Lear  as  saying:  "How 
sharper  than  a  serpent's  tooth  it  is  to  have  a  thankless 
child."  Now  if  a  weak  and  thoughtless  man  like  King 
Lear  can  say,  "Tis  sharper  than  a  serpent's  tooth  to  have 
a  thankless  child,"  what  must  be  the  feelings  of  a  kind 
and  loving  Father  in  heaven,  when  He  looks  down  to  earth 
and  sees  thousands  of  thankless  children,  for  whom  Christ 
gave  His  life  on  the  cross.  To  reject  the  cross  is  to 
desert  the  army  of  the  living  God.  Christ,  the  captain 
of  our  salvation,  is  the  greatest  conquerer  of  all  time. 
There  have  been  many  great  names  among  the  sons  of 
men,  but  Christ  was  more  than  a  man.  He  was  God 
manifest  in  the  flesh  that  he  might  destroy  the  works  of 
the  devil.  I  scan  the  roll  of  earth's  heroes  and  conquerors, 
and  I  see  the  name  of  Jesus  written  in  letters  of  blood  high 
above  them  all.  Napoleon  was  a  great  conqueror.  You 
have  read  how  he  led  his  army  over  the  snow  crowned 
Alps,  down  through  the  sunny  vales  of  Italy,  across  the 
sands  of  Egypt  to  the  pyramids,  on  a  tour  of  conquest, 
but  he  was  defeated  on  the  field  of  Waterloo  and  died  a 
prisoner  on  the  desolate  wave  washed  island  of  St.  Helena. 
Our  own  Sherman  was  a  mighty  conqueror.  You  know 
how  he  led  the  Union  army  to  the  sea,  cut  in  twain 
the  Confederate  army  and  thus  ended  the  war;  but  Jesus 


84  THE  OLD  GOSPEL 

Christ  the  captain  of  the  Lord's  Hosts  is  marching  with  a 
mighty  army  across  the  empires  of  the  ages.  For  near  two 
thousand  years  the  Christian  armies  have  been  assaulting 
the  strongliolds  of  sin  and  satan.  Idolatry,  superstition, 
and  bigotry  are  retreating  before  the  onward  march  of 
the  Gospel,  and  so  it  will  continue  until  the  last  page  of 
human  history  has  been  written,  and  then,  having  cut  in 
twain  the  forces  of  error  and  ended  the  war  between  right 
and  wrong,  truth  and  falsehood,  the  victorious  Saviour 
will  lead  His  redeemed  hosts  into  the  heavenly  Jersusalem, 
where  there  shall  be  one  eternal  thanksgiving,  a  family 
reunion  that  shall  never  end. 


THE  CALL  OF  THE  HOUR 


"And  He  called  the  multitude." — Matthew  15:10. 

*'And  a  great  multitude  followed  Him,  because  they 
saw  His  miracles/' — Jno.  6:2. 

"Though  it  be  true  that  life  is  short  and  the  world  full 
of  vanity,  yet  God's  work  must  be  done  diligently  and  to 
the  last." — Conybeare. 


THE  CALL  OF  THE   HOUR 

THERE  are  in  the  world  to-day,  three  institu- 
tions, which  take  precedence  of  all  others  in 
point  of  antiquity  and  influence.  These  are 
the  Home,  the  State  and  the  Church.  These 
are  all  divine  institutions  in  the  sense  that  the  necessity 
for  them  was  implanted  in  man's  nature  by  the  Creator 
when  He  made  man.  Wherever  you  find  man  on  the 
earth  you  will  find  these  institutions,  not  always  fully 
developed  to  be  sure,  but  at  least  in  rudimentary  form. 
They  are  all  divine  institutions  in  the  sense  that  they  have 
their  origin  in  one  or  another  of  the  Divine  attributes. 
The  home  rests  upon  or  grows  out  of  the  attribute  of  love. 
Take  love  away  and  you  cannot  have  a  home.  You  may 
have  a  club  or  a  boarding  house  but  not  a  home  in  the 
best  sense  of  the  word.  The  state  rests  upon  the  attribute 
of  justice.  It  is  the  function  of  the  state  to  secure  justice 
between  man  and  man.  In  so  far  as  any  government 
succeeds  in  accomplishing  this  purpose  it  has  fulfilled  its 
mission,  but  in  so  far  as  it  fails  in  this  it  fails  in  its  God- 
given  purpose. 

The  church  rests  upon  the  attribute  of  righteousness 
and  its  mission  is  to  establish  the  reign  of  righteousness 
over  all  the  earth. 

The  church  is  regarded  by  many  as  representing  mere 
sentiment,  beautiful  sentiment  to  be  sure  but  nothing 
more.  Others  think  of  the  church  as  a  means  of  prepara- 
tion for  death,  a  kind  of  fire  escape  or  insurance  company 

87 


88  THE  OLD  GOSPEL 

to  insure  against  loss  by  fire  in  the  future  life. 

As  to  sentiment,  the  church  stands  for  the  highest  and 
best  sentiment  that  has  ever  entered  into  the  mind  of 
man.  As  a  means  of  preparing  for  the  future,  it  is  the 
only  means  that  is  of  any  great  value,  ''for,  there  is  none 
other  name  under  heaven  given  among  men,  whereby 
we  must  be  saved."  But  the  church  is  also  the  greatest 
business  enterprise  in  the  world  to-day.  It  is  a  significant 
fact  that  the  first  recorded  utterance  of  our  Lord  was 
a  statement  in  which  He  characterized  His  lifework  as  a 
business  enterprise.  "Wist  ye  not  that  I  must  be  about 
My  Father's  business?" 

This  is  an  age  of  big  business.  Great  corporations  con- 
trol the  business  and  commercial  world  and  we  are  con- 
stantly hearing  about  the  importance  of  big  business.  Let 
us  not  forget  that  as  a  business  enterprise  the  church  of 
Jesus  Christ  represents  the  largest  permanent  investment, 
the  largest  annual  expenditure  for  running  expenses,  and 
employs  the  greatest  number  of  trained  workers,  of  any 
business  in  the  world.  The  church  represents  a  permanent 
investment  in  church  edifices,  furnishings,  and  grounds, 
mission  stations,  publishing  houses  and  hospitals  with  their 
equipment,  of  something  more  than  $50,000,000,000.  It 
represents  an  annual  expenditure,  for  the  conducting  of 
the  business,  of  about  $2,100,000,000,  and  employs  over 
7,000,000  trained  men  and  women  in  its  work  of  dis- 
seminating the  Gospel.  What  other  business  is  carried 
on  upon  such  a  gigantic  scale? 

'I  he  great  work  of  the  church  is  to  persuade  the  multi- 
tude to  follow  Jesus  Christ.  It  may  do  many  other  things, 
good  and  useful  things  and  fail  In  its  mission  as  a  church. 


IN  THE   NEW  CENTURY  89 

It  may  collect  vast  sums  of  money  for  Home  and  Foreign 
missions  and  be  only  a  collecting  and  distributing  agency 
for  philanthropy.  It  may  support  sewing  and  cooking 
schools  and  maintain  baths  and  reading  rooms  and  have 
many  institutional  features  and  be  only  a  pious  club.  It 
may  have  eloquent  preaching  and  the  best  of  music 
and  an  aesthetic  and  beautiful  ritual  and  be  nothing  more 
than  a  mutual  admiration  society.  We  hear  a  great  deal 
in  these  days  about  the  social  message  and  the  social  mis- 
sion of  the  church.  That  the  church  has  a  social  mission 
must  be  granted,  but  there  is  danger  that  in  our  interest 
in  the  social  problems  and  social  needs  of  the  day  we 
shall  forget  that  our  Lord's  program  was  to  regenerate 
society  through  the  saving  of  the  individual.  Christ's 
message  is  to  the  individual  soul.  Society  is  not  to  be 
made  better  enmasse,  but  by  winning  individual  men  and 
women  to  the  faith  and  service  of  Christ.  "The  call  of 
the  Hour"  is  the  call  of  the  Master's  voice  that  has  come 
ringing  down  the  centuries  from  the  shores  of  the  Sea  of 
Galilee — 'Tollow  thou  me." 

Dr.  W.  M.  Clow  in  his  book,  "The  Secret  of  the  Lord," 
has  put  it  very  plainly  and  forcefully  In  these  words,  "The 
office  and  function  of  the  Church  is  plainly  to  do  the  work 
Christ  gave  it  to  do  and  no  other.  Her  first  and  ruling 
purpose  should  be  to  win  men  to  Christ.  She  should 
regard  as  beyond  her  province  whatever  would  imperil 
her  fitness  or  her  force  for  this  primary  duty.  She  should 
watch  with  a  keen  eye  any  introduction  into  her  pulpit 
of  economic  or  industrial  or  political  questions.  The  min- 
ister in  the  pulpit  represents  the  Church  at  prayer.  What- 
ever personal  liberty  he  may  rightfully  claim  for  himself, 


go  THE  OLD  GOSPEL 

he  must  not  desecrate  so  sacred  an  hour  and  waste  so 
solemn  an  opportunity.  In  a  single  word,  the  office  and 
function  of  the  Church  is  to  proclaim  the  truth  as  it  is 
in  Jesus  and  apply  that  to  the  hearts  and  consciences 
of  men." 

It  is  a  matter  for  congratulation  that  in  the  Protestant 
Church  to-day,  with  possibly  a  few  minor  exceptions,  there 
is  in  all  denominations,  one  and  one  only  standard  for 
church  membership,  viz:  personal  acceptance  of  Jesus 
Christ  as  Lord  and  Saviour  and  proof  of  such  acceptance 
by  a  life  of  faith,  love  and  obedience.  Sometimes  the 
church  is  criticised  by  those  outside  for  not  requiring 
subscription  to  a  definite  creed.  But  our  reply  is  that  the 
church  cannot  afford  to  set  up  any  standard  or  make  any 
requirement  other  than  that  which  Christ  made  and  his 
message  ever  was,  "Follow  me."  Sometimes  the  church 
is  criticised  for  making  the  standard  too  high  and  insisting 
upon  personal  allegiance  to  the  divine  Christ,  but  our 
reply  is  that  the  church  cannot  be  loyal  to  Him  and  lower 
the  standard  which  He  set  up.  But  each  one  must  find 
Christ  in  his  own  way.  As  no  two  people  look  just  alike 
so  no  two  people  have  exactly  the  same  religious  experi- 
ence. Christ  appeals  to  each  according  to  his  individual 
mental  qualities.  He  takes  into  account  the  personality 
and  individuality  of  each  person  and  makes  His  appeal 
accordingly.  For  example,  Matthew  did  not  find  Christ 
in  just  the  same  way  that  Peter  did. 

Peter  was  not  called  in  the  same  way  that  Paul  was 
and  Paul  was  not  converted  in  just  the  same  manner  as 
was  the  Philippian  jailor.  We  do  not  read  however, 
that  St.  Paul  ever  doubted  the  conversion  of  the  others 


IN   THE   NEW   CENTURY  91 

because  they  had  not  arrived  at  their  decision  to  follow 
Christ  in  exactly  the  same  way  that  he  did.  This  is  some- 
times a  stumbling  block  to  people  outside  the  church. 
They  say,  "here  are  five  hundred  people  in  this  church  and 
no  two  of  them  have  had  exactly  the  same  religious  ex- 
perience and  no  two  of  them  believe  just  alike.  Now  if 
there  was  anything  in  religion  they  would  all  believe  alike. 
There  are  so  many  denominations  and  so  many  beliefs 
that  we  cannot  accept  any  of  them."  But  this  is  to  mis- 
understand God's  way.  God's  method  in  nature  and  in 
grace  is  the  method  of  unity  in  diversity.  Paul  says: 
"One  star  differeth  from  another  star  in  glory,"  but 
there  is  a  perfect  unity  and  harmony  about  tiie  starlit  sky. 
You  look  out  upon  a  landscape  and  you  do  not  see  all 
golden  fields  of  grain  or  all  green  fields  of  corn  or  all 
woodland  but  here  and  there  the  yellow  fields  of  grain 
interspersed  with  the  green  of  the  cornfields  and  these 
surrounded  by  the  deeper  green  of  the  woodlands,  but  all 
one  harmonious  and  beautiful  landscape.  It  was  my 
privilege  not  long  since  to  hear  the  Oratorio  of  Elijah 
rendered  by  a  choir  of  two  hundred  and  fifty  voices  and  an 
orchestra  of  one  hundred  and  fifty  instruments.  They 
were  not  all  one  kind  of  instruments  nor  were  they  all 
soprano  or  alto  or  tenor  or  bass  voices.  Each  voice  had  its 
own  peculiar  tone  quality  and  there  were  the  four  parts 
but  one  beautiful  and  perfect  harmony.  So  it  is  in  the 
church  of  Christ,  many  individual  experiences  but  all 
attuned  to  the  same  divine  Christ. 

The  fundamental  question  in  religion  is  not,  does  this 
one  or  that  one  accept  this  or  that  particular  dogma  of  the 
church  or  subscribe  to  the  same  creed  that  I  accept,  but 


92  THE  OLD  GOSPEL 

does  he  love  Christ  and  put  Him  first  in  his  life.  Does 
he  put  his  love  for  Christ  before  his  love  of  gain,  his  love 
of  pleasure  or  his  love  of  ease  or  self  indulgence.  Is  the 
individual  honestly  striving  to  obey  the  Master's  com- 
mand when  He  says:  "Seek  ye  first  the  kingdom  of  God 
and  His  righteousness."  If  he  is  doing  this  we  have  no 
right  to  insist  upon  anything  more  as  a  condition  of  church 
membership. 

Second:  Christ  is  calling  the  multitude  through 
the  lives  and  efforts  of  His  professed  disciples.  The 
Master  has  committed  to  His  church  the  work  of 
winning  the  world  to  himself.  "Ye  are  my  witnesses." 
There  is  a  story  that  I  have  read  somewhere,  to  the  effect 
that  when  our  Saviour  left  this  world  after  his  resurrec- 
tion, he  was  met  in  heaven  by  Abraham  and  others  of  the 
old  Testament  prophets  and  one  of  them  asked  Him  what 
provision  He  had  made  for  saving  the  world,  and  He 
replied,  that  He  had  chosen  twelve  men  and  Instructed 
them  in  the  ways  of  salvation  and  sent  them  forth  to  tell 
others  of  His  suffering  and  death  upon  the  cross  and  these 
in  turn  would  tell  others  and  so  on  until  the  end  of  time  ; 
but,  said  one,  what  if  a  generation  should  arise  that  would 
neglect  to  tell  the  message  to  their  children,  and  the  Mas- 
ter replied,  "No  other  provision  has  been  made  for  the 
salvation  of  the  lost  world."  This  brings  home  very 
forcibly  the  duty  of  the  church  to  witness  for  Christ  and 
to  be  in  earnest  in  the  work  Pie  has  entrusted  to  her. 
We  who  profess  to  be  the  followers  of  Christ  have  a 
great  responsibility  resting  upon  us.  We  need  to  pray  for 
greater  earnestness  and  more  zeal  in  the  matter  of  making 
Christ  known  to  the  lost. 


IN  THE   NEW  CENTURY  93 

It  Is  sometimes  said  that  the  Bible  is  not  read  as  much 
now  as  it  was  in  a  former  time  and  that  the  sacraments 
do  not  mean  as  much  as  they  did  in  a  bygone  age.  If  this 
be  true,  which  I  very  much  doubt,  the  fault  lies  at  the 
door  of  the  church.  If  church  members  neglect  to  bring 
their  children  to  the  baptismal  altar  is  it  any  wonder  that 
the  world  says  there  is  not  much  in  baptism  after  all? 
If  church  members  neglect  the  Lord's  table  with  impunitj- 
is  it  any  wonder  that  those  outside  the  church  should 
conclude  that  our  Lord's  commands  are  held  lightly  by 
His  followers?  When  professed  Christians  put  the  pre- 
cepts of  the  Bible  into  practice  in  all  the  relations  of  life, 
in  business,  in  politics  and  in  society,  the  world  will  place 
a  higher  value  upon  the  Bible  than  it  now  does.  "Ye  are 
living  epistles,  known  and  read  of  all  men."  The  value 
of  the  sacraments  is  either  enhanced  or  depreciated  bv 
our  faithfulness  or  lack  of  faithfulness.  The  Bible  will 
never  mean  more  to  the  unconverted  than  it  means  to  the 
followers  of  Christ. 

Third:  God  is  calling  His  church  as  never  before  to 
the  work  of  evangelizing  the  multitude.  There  never  w^as 
an  age  when  the  call  was  so  loud  and  clear  as  it  is  to-day. 
This  call  comes  to  us  through  the  opportunities  that  open 
to  us  for  service.  Many  fail  to  hear  the  call  because  their 
minds  are  preoccupied,  they  are  too  busy  with  other  things. 
In  one  of  the  smaller  towers  of  St.  Paul's  in  London 
there  is  a  clock  which  strikes  the  hours  from  one  to  twelve 
through  the  twenty-four  hours  of  the  day  and  night.  But 
I  have  been  told  that  there  are  at  least  five  hundred  thou- 
sand people  within  ten  squares  of  St.  Paul's  who  nevei 
hear  the  clock  strike.     They  hear  the  rustle  of  fabrics  on 


94  THE  OLD  GOSPEL 

the  counters  of  the  marts  of  commerce,  they  hear  the 
clink  of  gold  on  the  counters  of  the  exchange,  they  hear 
the  click  of  machinery  and  the  rumble  of  the  wheels  of 
commerce,  but  they  do  not  hear  the  clock  because  their 
minds  are  taken  up  with  these  other  things.  So  there  are 
many  to-day  who  do  not  hear  the  call  to  service  because 
they  are  too  busy  with  the  things  of  this  world. 

Others  fail  to  hear  the  call  to  service  because  they  are 
looking  for  some  great  opportunity.  But  there  is  no  such 
thing  as  a  great  opportunity.  Great  things  are  accom- 
plished when  we  do  the  thing  that  needs  to  be  done  in 
God's  time  and  in  God's  way.  We  say,  when  we  think 
of  the  Sunday  school  with  its  500,000  schools  and  its 
26,000,000  members,  that  a  great  opportunity  came  to 
Robert  Raikes.  But  Robert  Raikes  never  saw  the  Sun- 
day school  as  you  and  I  think  of  it.  What  he  saw  was  a 
few  children  playing  in  the  streets  of  an  English  city,  and 
what  he  did  was  to  try  to  meet  the  need  of  the  hour  by 
securing  a  number  of  Christian  women  to  gather  those 
children  out  of  the  streets  and  take  them  to  the  church  on 
the  Lord's  Day  and  teach  them  the  Bible  and  the  cate- 
chism. But  God's  hand  was  upon  that  m.ovement  and  out 
of  that  efFort  to  save  the  children  grew  a  great  institution 
that  God  has  abundantly  blessed  in  the  saving  of  many 
souls.  You  may  say  that  a  great  opportunity  came  to 
Dr.  F.  E.  Clark  when  he  organized  the  Christian  En- 
deavor movement.  But  what  he  did  was  to  organize  the 
young  people  of  his  own  church  in  Portland,  Maine,  for 
service.  God  blessed  his  work  and  it  grew  to  be  a  world 
wide  institution.  You  do  not  know  when  God  calls  j^ou 
to  any  particular  service  that  that  sei-vice  will  not  count 


IN  THE  NEW  CENTURY  95. 

for  more  in  eternity  than  any  thing  else  you  have  evei 
done. 

Again,  God  is  calling  His  people  to  service  by  the  gifts 
with  which  He  has  endowed  his  church.  Never  before 
was  the  church  so  rich  in  money,  culture  and  influence  as 
it  is  to-day.  We  used  to  speak  of  having  an  educated 
ministry,  but  now  we  have  also  an  educated  and  cultured 
constituency  as  well.  But  God  has  not  bestowed  these 
gifts  upon  us  to  be  used  for  our  own  selfish  ends.  If  He 
has  given  wealth  it  is  that  it  may  be  used  for  His  glory. 
Has  He  given  us  the  advantages  of  schools  and  culture,  it 
is  that  we  may  consecrate  these  to  the  work  of  saving 
the  multitude  from  the  paths  of  sin.  But  you  say  that 
while  all  this  is  true  in  general,  you  are  not  aware  that 
you  have  any  special  gifts  that  you  can  use  for  Christ, 
It  should  be  remembered  that  God's  gifts  come  to  us  in 
the  form  of  raw  material  to  be  worked  out  by  us.  God 
does  not  give  us  cities  ready  built.  He  gives  us  the  timber 
in  the  forests,  the  rocks  in  the  quarries,  the  iron  in  the 
mountains  and  we  must  cut  the  timber  and  work  it  up  into 
lumber,  we  must  bring  the  rock  from  the  quarry  and  the 
ore  from  the  mines  and  by  developing  the  raw  material  we 
build  our  cities  and  our  factories  and  our  homes. 

So  it  is  that  God  does  not  give  us  churches  manned  and 
officered,  but  he  gives  us  the  raw  material  upon  which  to 
work,  men  and  women  who  are  lost,  men  and  women 
struggling  and  striving  and  bearing  great  burdens  upon 
their  hearts.  He  gives  us  the  Gospel  message  in  the  Bible 
and  He  sends  us  out  to  call  the  multitude  to  the  service  of 
Christ. 

If  we  are  only  willing  to  bring  the  little  that  we  have 


96  THE  OLD  GOSPEL 

In  the  way  of  ability  to  work  for  Him  and  lay  it  at  His 
feet  He  will  bless  and  use  it  for  His  own  glory  and  the 
salvation  of  men. 

Many  years  ago  there  was  a  boy  In  Chicago  clerking  in 
a  shoe  store.  He  was  not  a  brilliant  boy,  but  he  was  hi 
early  life  converted,  and  consecrated  all  his  powers  to  the 
service  of  Christ.  He  went  out  Into  the  streets  of  the 
city  and  gathered  together  a  class  of  news  boys  and  boot 
blacks  and  formed  them  into  a  Sunday-school  class.  The 
class  grew  until  there  was  a  church  and  the  church  grew 
until  there  was  by  its  side  a  school  known  as  the  Moody 
Institute  and  then  the  work  grew  until  Northfield  was 
realized  and  then  Mr.  Moody  in  company  with  Mr. 
Sankey  went  up  and  down  the  land  preaching  Christ  to 
the  multitude  and  thousands  were  saved.  Like  the  loaves 
and  the  fishes  brought  by  the  lad  to  Christ,  with  which  He 
fed  the  thousands,  the  talents  which  Mr.  Moody  brought 
were  small  In  the  world's  eyes,  but  with  the  Master's 
blessing  they  were  sufficient  to  feed  thousands  with  the 
bread  of  eternal  life.  You  may  not  have  much  to  bring, 
in  your  own  estimation,  but  if  you  are  willing  to  put  it 
all  at  the  service  of  Christ  he  can  make  that  little  mighty 
for  good. 

Finally,  God's  call  to  service  always  involves  a  call  to 
preparation.  The  preparation  required  is  not  elaborate 
or  expensive  but  it  is  absolutely  Imperative.  God  cannot 
use  those  w^ho  are  not  prepared  to  be  used  of  Him.  The 
first  element  in  that  preparation  is  repentance  for  sin. 
God  cannot  use  the  unregenerate  man  or  woman  in  win- 
ning souls  for  Christ.  "If  I  regard  Iniquity  in  my  heart 
the  Lord  will  not  hear  me." 


IN  THE  NEW  CENTURY  97 

The  second  element  in  preparation  for  service  is  a 
knowledge  of  God's  Word.  The  Word  is  the  instrument 
that  God  uses  in  bringing  conviction  to  the  heart.  One 
verse  of  Scripture  is  better  than  yards  of  rhetoric  or  hours 
of  logic.  God  has  not  promised  to  make  argument  or 
human  logic  efficient  to  the  saving  of  souls,  but  he  has 
promised  to  bless  the  use  of  the  Word.  For,  "My  Word 
shall  not  return  unto  me  void  but  shall  accomplish  that 
which  I  please  and  shall  prosper  in  the  thing  whereunto  1 
have  sent  it." 

Another  element  in  our  preparation  for  service  is  de- 
pendence upon  the  Holy  Spirit.  Some  time  ago  I  read 
this  incident  (in  the  Homiletic  Review)  which  helps  to 
make  plain  what  ought  to  be  our  attitude  toward  the 
Spirit.  In  a  factory  where  rich  fabrics  were  woven  it  was 
the  rule  of  the  factory  that  when  an  operative  found  a 
snarl  in  his  thread  he  or  she  was  not  to  attempt  to 
straighten  it  out,  but  was  to  press  an  electric  button  and  an 
expert  would  come  from  the  office,  whose  business  it  was 
to  straighten  out  the  snarl.  One  day  a  woman  who  had 
worked  many  years  In  the  factory  found  her  thread  in  a 
snarl  and  undertook  to  fix  it  herself,  but  the  longer  she 
worked  the  worse  it  became  entangled,  and  at  last,  in 
despair  she  pressed  the  button  and  when  the  expert  came 
he  found  that  he  had  to  cut  the  threads  and  thus  tht 
web  was  marred  forever.  As  the  man  turned  to  leave,  the 
woman  said  by  way  of  apology  or  explanation — 'Well. 
I  did  the  best  I  could' — to  which  the  man  replied,  'Your 
best  is  always  to  depend  on  me' — How  often  in  life  the 
threads  become  entangled  and  we  attempt  to  straighten 
out  the  snarl  only  to  make  things  worse.     If  we  would 


98  THE  OLD  GOSPEL 

only  remember  that  our  best  is  always  to  depend  upon  the 
Holy  Spirit  and  seek  through  a  careful  and  prayerful 
study  of  the  Word  to  know  what  is  the  mind  of  the  Spirit 
and  be  willing  to  be  guided  thereby,  the  web  of  life  would 
not  so  often  be  marred.  With  earnest  prayer  for  the  help 
of  the  Holy  Spirit  may  we  all  hear  and  heed  the  call  to 
serve  our  Lord  in  the  great  work  of  leading  the  multitude 
to  know  and  serve  Him. 


Princeton  Theoloqical  Seminarv  Li^^^^^ 


1012  01197  0649 


.l>i:?rMi?! 


fVAKTIetVeRITATifQ 


